St. Pete Yoga, located at 2842 Dr. MLK Street, N. (above Rollin Oats), is one of Florida’s largest yoga and meditation centers. It was founded twenty-five years ago and offers over one hundred weekly classes in a variety of styles. (www.stpetersburgyoga.com)

Physical Benefits of Yoga:

• Flexibility: Stretching your tight body in new ways will help it to become more flexible, bringing a greater range of motion to muscles and joints.
• Strength: Many yoga poses require you to support the weight of your own body in new ways, including balancing on one leg (such as in Tree Pose) or supporting yourself with your arms (such as in Downward Facing Dog).
• Muscle tone: Yoga helps shape long, lean muscles.
• Pain Prevention: Increased flexibility and strength can help prevent the causes of some types of back pain. Yoga improves your alignment, both in and out of class, which helps prevent many other types of pain.
• Better Breathing: Most of us breathe very shallowly into the lungs and don’t give much thought to how we breathe. Yoga breathing exercises, called Pranayama, focus the attention on the breath and teach us how to better use our lungs, which benefits the entire body.

Mental Benefits of Yoga:

• Mental Calmness: Yoga introduces you to meditation techniques, such as watching how you breathe and disengagement from your thoughts, which help calm the mind.
• Stress Reduction: The emphasis yoga places on being in the moment can help relieve stress, as you learn not to dwell on past events or anticipate the future. You will leave a yoga class feeling less stressed than when you started.
• Body Awareness: Doing yoga will give you an increased awareness of your own body which can lead to improved posture and greater self-confidence.

For more information: Call 727.894.9642 or E-mail at: info@stpetersburgyoga.com

Related Reading

Yoga Beyond Belief – Insights to Awaken and Deepen Your Practice, Foreword by Sting

Yoga Anywhere Class on Audio CD

The Complete Illustrated Book of Yoga, by Swami Vishnu-devananda

The Yoga Diaries: Stories of Transformation Through Yoga (Volume 1) by Jeannie Page