Why Should We Start Practising Yoga Twists? Benefits of Yoga Twists
Our ancient culture has given us a boon-Yoga. Yoga is a deep understanding of the relationship between nature and human life. It gives us the ability to be young, healthy, and conscious for many years. People who perform yoga regularly have better health symptoms in their later years.
Yoga specifically targets all the body parts and mind including the spine. The spine has a very important role in the human body but we don’t focus on its health. Often it is neglected. But Yoga has a completely different chapter on it. It discusses the problems, symptoms, and solutions for the spine in detail. In this blog, I am going to describe Yoga for the spine. If we don’t know about it, be with this blog till the end.
What are Yoga Twists?
Yoga for the spine is known as Twist Yoga. As the name suggests, twist yoga rotates your spine by moving your shoulders in opposite directions to your hips. This is essential as our spine is not able to gain blood flow directly. Our discs in the spine are avascular in nature and they depend on indirect ways of getting blood supply. This indirect blood supply mechanism is called Imbibing. Imbibing causes fluctuations in the pressure around our spine discs. As a result, our spine discs drink the nearby fluid. This fluid keeps the discs healthy and plump. It also creates separation between the vertebrae for motion.
Moving your spine in all directions is important for this process to happen. Yoga twists target this very phenomenon and boost the process of spine rotation. Twists are a perfect choice for improving the shift in pressure in the fluid around the discs.
Popular Yoga Twisting Poses:
There are many Yoga twists exercises or better to be called ‘poses’. These poses effectively move your spine. It results in improving their flexibility, strength, and health. Regularly practising these Yoga poses to make your spine healthy for a long time. These yoga twists poses are as follows.
– Twisted Chair Pose (Parivrtta Utkatasana)
– Parsvakonasana
– Parivrtta Natarajasana
– Half Lord of the Fishes Pose aka Half Spinal Test (Ardha Matsyendrasna)
– Revolved Triangle Pose (Parivrtta Trikonasana)
– Supine Spinal Twist (Jathara Parivartanasana)
– Marichyasana C
All these Yoga twist poses are specially for keeping your spine healthy and in motion. However, you need to stay safe while practising these poses. It is also important to understand the anatomy of twisted actions and their results.
Benefits of Yoga Twists:
If you think that yoga twists are helpful only for stretching your spine, you need to think twice. This is not its limit. Twisting yoga poses improves spine mobility, releases energy blockages, and is also helpful in improving the functioning of other organs. Below are the benefits of practising Yoga.
1. Keeps Your Spine Healthy:
Yoga and modern science both understand how important is the spine to the human body. It helps us to stand, move, sit, and control our reflex actions. There is a saying in Yoga. “You are only as young as your spine is flexible.” The spine’s important parts are its discs that lie between the vertebrae of the spine. These disks are gelatinous and help your spine to move easily. These disks also absorb the shocks we often get in our bodies.
As we grow old, the thickness of spine disks lowers and we find our backs in pain. We feel stiffness and pain in our spine. Yoga twists improve movement and slow down the ageing of spinal disks. As the deterioration of the disks decreases, you stay young for a longer time. The controlled movements of Yoga twists improve the range of motion of spinal disks and stop them from becoming stagnant. Yoga twists help you to stay young.
2. Opens Blocked Energy Pathways:
In Yoga, our spine has a very special role. It aligns with the energy healing chakras present in your body. Therefore when you practise Yoga twists, it gives you benefits both physically & emotionally. The yoga twist pose removes the energy blockages in your body and paves a channel for energy to flow flawlessly. Continuous energy flow improves your consciousness, calms your mind, and improves your cognitive abilities alongside improving the chakra balance in your body.
3. Improves Digestion:
Space helps your body to process digestion effectively. Yoga twists promote space in your stomach. The space created allows the gut to pass through the food easily. When you twist your spine, it also affects the digestive motion, creating movements in your digestive system. Practising yoga twists contract & stretch your muscles, therefore, giving better blood flow, improving digestion, and boosting metabolism.
4. Stimulates and Detoxes Your Organs:
Alongside improving digestion, Yoga twists also work in favour of activating and purifying your vital organs. This has high effects on the lymphatic system of the body that helps drain the blood’s waste materials & toxins in the body. Yoga twists improve your lymphatic system and help purify your body by stimulating the flow of lymph fluid.
Example- Half Spinal Twists aka Ardha Matsyesndrasana directs your lymph flow in the torso. It activates the solar plexus chakra. Activating this chakra helps the functioning of your stomach, gallbladder, liver, spleen, and pancreas.
5. Enhances Pranic Flow:
The main purpose of Yoga is to improve the relationship between humans and nature. Yoga twists improve the natural movement of spinal disks. But this does much more than that. It improves the Pranic energy flow throughout the body through the spine as a medium. When bad energies or blockages are removed, positive energy or a better flow of life energy starts in your body. As a result, your body feels more alive, energetic, and healthy.
Conclusion:
Many people still are unaware of the Yoga poses for improving spine health. These poses are called Yoga twists and have considerable effects on the mobility of the spine. But it does not limit to that. Further, the Yoga twists and benefits improve your digestion, lymphatic system, spine health, and the Pranic flow in your body.
I hope this blog helped you in underestimating the Yoga twists and benefits. If you are struggling with your back or want flexibility as you had in your young days, start doing the Yoga twists from today only.
