These days, everyone from athletes to your coworkers have been chasing their om — and for good reason. It’s meditative, spiritual, and can be physically and mentally transformative. But even as an exercise modality, yoga still has a stigma of being slow, easy, and low-impact. This is where hot yoga comes in.
It’s basically just like regular yoga, but you’ll be made to sweat more. This is because the practice is done in a hot and humid room so that your heart, muscles, and lungs can get the most out of your workout.
Now you might be thinking, “It’s the middle of summer. Why would I want to sweat buckets in a yoga room if I can just do it outside?”
Well, there are actually a lot of ways that you can benefit from hot yoga. When done properly and practiced safely, you can reap the following benefits from hot yoga and more:
The benefits of hot yoga
- For better range of motion
Just think about your last exercise. Remember how you were able to go deeper into your stretches after your muscles have warmed up? Doing yoga in a temperature-controlled room can help you with just this: deep stretching and bending to your full range of motion.
After regular hot yoga practice, you’ll likely notice more flexibility and ease in doing “difficult” poses.
- For stress reduction
Much like regular yoga, hot yoga can ease stress, depression and help with headaches too. But what’s even better is that you get to sweat more toxins and heavy metals away as you do it.
- For faster calorie-burn
If you’re looking to lose weight, hot yoga can help you with this goal too.
See, the hotter conditions will encourage your heart to pump faster and you to sweat more. In short, it will make your body work harder than it normally would. This will in turn signal your body to burn more calories than you would in a regular yoga routine.
- For a healthier heart
As mentioned, the heat can be a bit more challenging to your heart. It forces your organ to work harder and pump faster, which makes hot yoga a great practice for those who want to kick start their cardiovascular health.
Just how fast can your heart rate go in a hot yoga session exactly? Studies have found that a session can work your heart the same way a brisk walk or a slow jog would.
- For better skin
Want that healthy, rosy glow without the cosmetic assistance? Hot yoga can help you look and feel healthier after just a few sessions. It helps boost your circulation to lend you healthier and more nourished-looking skin.
The takeaway
Love yoga, but want to try a more intense form of exercise this summer? Hot yoga takes you through the same movement and flow as regular yoga — but with a whole lot more sweating.
Just be sure to drink plenty of water and bring a change of clothes when you do decide to try this popular new exercise.
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