Yoga is more popular now than ever before. In fact, Americans spend over $2.5 billion on yoga every year, and nearly a third of Americans have at least tried yoga at some point. And it should come as no surprise. Yoga offers physical, mental, and spiritual benefits, and it has demonstrated effectiveness for everything from losing weight to lowering blood pressure. If you’re not feeling totally fulfilled with your yoga classes, you may just need to make some simple but critical adjustments. Here are some basic tips for getting the most out of yoga:
1. Leave Your Phone at Home
Or, you can leave it in the car. The point is that yoga is all about being present, and nothing will take you out of the present moment faster than those incessant text messages and Facebook status updates. Consider that the average person touches their phone more than 2,600 times a day and that Americans spend an average of 5 hours a day browsing.
Smartphone addiction is a real problem, and yoga is all about freeing yourself from the things that hold you in bondage. By ridding yourself of this distraction, if only for an hour, you’re free to fully immerse yourself in your yoga session and reap the full rewards.
2. Enjoy a Healing Post-Workout Beverage
You always want to have a refreshing bottle of water on hand for an invigorating workout, but have you considered the benefits of CBD water? Cannabidiol, or CBD, has been garnering a lot of attention lately. That’s not just because of the nation’s evolving attitudes about cannabis; it’s also because CBD has been subject to a growing body of research demonstrating a wealth of benefits from anxiety reduction to inflammation relief. For instance, cannabis has been shown to reduce pain symptoms in up to 90% of people who use it for that purpose. CBD (a compound of the cannabis plant) is useful for everyone because it offers all the medicinal benefits without the psychoactive properties of THC (i.e. You’ll feel better, but you won’t get high). So you feel less soreness after your session, and you can enjoy the benefits of yoga without the discomfort that so often follows.
But the question remains: Why use CBD water as opposed to CBD oil or capsules? To put it simply, CBD water offers the hydration benefits that are necessary after every strenuous workout (and let’s be honest, yoga can be pretty exhausting no matter how much it’s supposed to “relax” us) while also providing relief from the inevitable muscle soreness. As a result, you can attend more yoga classes without the unpleasant side effects. Perhaps most importantly, CBD water is specially formulated to maximize the bio-availability of CBD, meaning that the compound is absorbed into the bloodstream more quickly and utilized more effectively by the body.
3. Find a Yoga Class That Really Works for You
We all know the benefits of yoga, but not all yoga classes are created equal. In fact, Yoga Journal took a poll that included the top reasons why people leave their yoga class. The No. 1 reason was that people simply didn’t like their yoga instructor. Other reasons why people walked out included:
- The class was too hot
- Injury
- The class was too crowded
- The class was too advanced
- The instructor provided an inappropriate assist
If you’re frustrated by an aspect of your yoga class, it’s okay to walk away and find a more suitable option. If you’re not able to stay in the moment and enjoy the class, you’re not going to benefit from the session. So, by all means, do whatever it takes to find the class that works for you.