Yoga Session can help a person to become more alert

A new study suggests that a 20-minute session of Hatha yoga is enough to improve both the speed and accuracy of people. Yoga practice helps the participants to perform better after the yoga session than after their aerobic exercise that was performed with the same amount of time.

30 female undergraduate students were subjected into the study wherein they were introduced to yoga practice.

Yoga is one of the oldest methods of exercise that involves regular breathing and meditation. Neha Gothe from Wayne State University in Detroit said that the benefits of yoga are not that fully known despite the fact that many people are practicing it now.

In the US alone, yoga practice has become one of the most acceptable ways to lose weight. Aside from losing weight, a person can also gain mental health benefits.

The study involved a 20-minute progression of seated, standing and supine yoga postures, which included isometric contraction and relaxation of different muscle groups and regulated breathing. The session is of course composed of both meditative posture and deep breathing.

Aside from Yoga, participants were also asked to walked or jogged on a treadmill for 20 minutes. Each of the participants tried to maintain 60 to 70 percent of her maximum heart rate while working out in the treadmill during the session.

After the yoga session, the participants showed some improvement in their reaction times and accuracy on cognitive tasks, which is better compared to their reaction time after an aerobic session.

Researchers believes that yoga helps the participants to focus their mental resources, process information immediately, more accurately, as well as learn, hold and update pieces of information better than the results they have after their aerobic session.