Those who practice yoga, whether attending weekly classes, or rolling out their mats daily in the living room, understand and acknowledge the health benefits of their practice. The stretching and breathing exercises found in yoga routines have been shown to have numerous heath benefits including:
- Slowing heart rate
- Dropping blood pressure
- Calming the nervous system
- Relaxing muscles
Psychology Today reports that yoga practiced 20 minutes three times a week can improve the quality of breath, especially when including poses that open the chest and increase lung capacity.
For the National Cancer Institute-estimated 19.8 percent of U.S. adults that are cigarette smokers, yoga might also prove to be a useful tool for quitting smoking.
The Benefits of Quitting Smoking
Before a person uses yoga as a tool to aid in abstaining from smoking, it is important to note the health benefits from quitting smoking. The NCI reports that quitting smoking immediately returns heart rate and blood pressure to normal levels, and carbon monoxide levels in the blood are reduced within hours.
A few weeks after quitting smoking, circulation improves, while coughing, wheezing and phlegm production reduces. Months after quitting, lungs start to function normally, and the extended non-smoker can enjoy reduced risks for heart disease, stroke and cancer.
Exercise and Nicotine Cravings
Exercise has been proven to have a positive influence on those attempting to quit smoking. A 2007 study in Addiction showed that as little as a five-minute walk can help reduce nicotine cravings and help manage withdrawal symptoms. Moderate exercise has been equated to the nicotine patch as far as effectiveness when it comes to quitting smoking, as a Nicotine & Tobacco Research study in 2007 showed exercise can reduce the craving for nicotine, even after exposed to a lit cigarette.
Yoga Your Way Out of Addiction
Yoga is about breathing, and essentially, so is cigarette smoking. Many people find smoking relaxing because of the breathing in and out aspect of the habit, although the breathing techniques in yoga are sans nicotine, and therefore, far healthier.
In fact, breathing has long been known to physiologically affect the body; it has the ability to calm, improve circulation and control the central nervous system.
A Russia-born addiction guru, Jacob Marshak, incorporates yoga into his therapy for clients, as reported in the February 2009 issue of Life Extension. Marshak used Hatha yoga to overcome his own addiction to alcohol, and uses yoga as part of his treatment for addicted clients at his clinics in Russia and California.
In theory, yoga is moving its way up the chain of supplemental treatments for nicotine addiction. A 2006 survey from Nicotine & Tobacco Research revealed that 16 percent of respondents would consider yoga in the future to quit smoking, and that 27 percent of those using alternative therapies for quitting smoking found yoga, meditation and relaxation therapies to be effective.
So for a motivation to feel calm, open and to experience deep, clean breaths, a few yoga poses might do the trick, and be an investment for every non-smoker's future.
Lisa Ann Schleipfer - I am a creative writer from the Great Lakes area, now residing in the sticky state of Florida. I penned my first poem when I was eight, ...
