Common Benefits of Yoga That You Are Probably Aware of
There are quite a few benefits that result from moving meditation practices, such as Yoga. Its beauty lies in the fact that the benefits of each particular posture which are not something that you seek in isolation.
What happens are that once you are striving towards achieving the posture, you end up experiencing the benefits of various other postures as well. This is because, whatever you are doing, you are putting your body into a different position and the body reacts to that change. Poses help improve the health of the muscles, tendons, bones, ligaments, and nerves as well as the circulatory and immune systems. This means that assuming a certain pose can also improve the functioning of your cardiovascular and respiratory systems, your brain, and help you feel and look more confident.
This is not to say that if you can assume a particular pose, you will end up with all these benefits. But the thing is that it is the striving towards the pose that already means that you are improving and thus, it is quite likely that you are already experiencing some of the benefits, even if you do not realize that.
Another benefit of practicing yoga is that it helps you get rid of aches and pains in different parts of your body, including the back occuring due to poor posture. Yoga can help you fix your posture and appear tall and lean.
Yoga and Dental Health
Yoga profoundly affects your teeth and gums. Not only your immune system, but every single cell in your body benefits from yoga. Your nervous system and inflammatory response is much more sensitive to your surroundings when your body is relaxed. So, by reducing stress through yoga, you also will reduce inflammation in your mouth and keep your jaw relaxed.
Doing specific yoga poses, such as the bridge pose, you will strengthen your jaw muscles and improve their function which will help keep your teeth and jaw bone in perfect alignment.
Many studies have also shown that yoga has a positive effect on enhancing the sense of wellbeing. It's also a great stress reliever, which will improve overall health.
While any yoga practice is beneficial, some poses are more beneficial than others. If you want to improve your dental health, make sure you focus on doing these yoga poses regularly.
Poses to Improve Your Teeth
The bridge pose stretches the back of the mouth as well as the tongue and provides a gentle massage to the jaw muscles.
The Child Pose stretches the face, improving tension in the jaw by applying gentle pressure to the backside of the head.
The Gomukasana stretches the back of the mouth really well while decreasing stiffness of the neck and shoulder. It strengthens the spine and provides an overall massage and toning to all muscles in the body. Most of us have a bad posture due to wrong sitting habits. Practising Gomukhasana helps to rearrange the posture of the shoulder, back, and hips and helps us to maintain the overall perfect posture by stretching the triceps and chest muscles.
Yoga for Stress
To practice yoga at least once a day helps to keep stress at bay. However, yoga can also be used to manage chronic stress by combining it with meditation.
Instructions
The yoga and meditative activities that follow aim to relieve tension you may be holding in your jaws. These activities can also help you relax your entire body to help relieve pain and suffering. This exercise should only be done once a day and should be performed slowly and with attention. Start by relaxing your entire body in Shavasana.
- Lie flat on your back.
- Breathe in and breathe out 3 times and try to keep your mind blank.
- You could close your eyes or keep them half open.
- First try to smile with your mouth.
- Let the corners of your mouth move upwards.
- Now move the corners of your mouth downwards to form a frown.
- Keep your mouth open and relaxed.
- Start with the upper traps muscles.
- Gently move your eyebrows up and your eyes upwards as you inhale.
- Then exhale and relax your eyebrows and eyes.
Do this movement 10 times.
What Stress has to do with Straightening Teeth or their Alignment?
The primary connection to the practice of Yoga is that it is a great way to relieve stress. Stress is one of the most significant factors in many bad habits and conditions which you may have. As the stress levels drop, so do cravings for unhealthy habits.
As stress levels decrease, you stand a better chance of forming healthy habits. Having a straight and aligned set of teeth should be one of them. You are more prone to adopt bad habits if you have stress levels that are higher than average.
But since Yoga is centered around meditation, it's a great way to get your stress levels back to normal. The main thing you'll do with yoga is learn how to sit with proper alignment. You'll soon realize that you are more aware of your habits. Yoga is a great way to live a life with an improved version of yourself.
When you have improved posture, you'll be looking for ways to keep it. A great start is by keeping an eye on your habits. You no longer need to make excuses to be unable to do something. Now that you have a better idea of how to keep your body straight, you're ready to start looking at how your habits come into play. The next step is just being aware of how they affect your body. It'll be easier to identify the patterns you want to keep and the bad ones you want to eliminate.
Yoga and Saliva and what they have to do with Teeth Alignment?
Yoga is one of the most fulfilling hobbies and interests you can take in. It is also a great way to add some much needed activity to your daily routine. Yoga is much more important than just a simple asana practice. It is an ancient science which teaches you to align your body, mind, and soul. On top of that, it is also very beneficial for your overall physical and mental health.
All the asana in yoga help improve and align your body posture. Yoga is all about the integration and alignment of the body, mind and soul. With regular youga practice your inner organs, that carry out important tasks for your body, are better supported and nourished.
Your teeth are linked to your postural habits. A poor posture affects the neck, spine and the buccal apparatus. Our shoulders and thorax fall down due to prolonged hunching, the lower jaw's position also shifts forward.
The upper and lower teeth due to the movement of the lower jaws, come out of alignmen as opposed to be aligned in a stratight posture. This small change in the body changes our whole anatomy. The joints, bones and muscles of our jaw area are stressed. The skull moves back and the spine is compressed causing inflammation and pain when you open or close your mouth.
Yoga can Control and Stimulate your Saliva
There is an old belief that yoga can stimulate your salivary gland. The idea is that the yoga practice promotes muscle relaxation. This leads to a reduction in cortisol levels. This causes a decrease in the rate of the breakdown of glucose. This is no surprise if you examine the studies done in the field of saliva gland research.
You will find studies done on mice models where they have provided rise in cortisol levels, and their research has shown a decrease in the rate at which the saliva is produced. This may be one of the best ways to naturally remove bad breath. Yoga will definitely assist you in suppressing bad breath. This is because research has shown that it is a very effective technique in inhibiting overactive tongue and teeth grinding, which may cause tooth damage.
Yoga also helps reset your circadian rhythm. This may seem like it has nothing to do with sleeping but this is because most people who have irregular sleep patterns produce less saliva. This is because saliva is produced in the sleep cycle. In order to correct this, you may need a prescription.
To shift your circadian rhythm to normal you may need to consider focusing on sunlight in the day time. In the evening, you should avoid glaring screens and bright lights. These will tell your brain and body that it is time to sleep.
Postures are the key to Straighten Your Teeth Through Yoga
We all know that we need to develop the habit of a proper body posture to keep good health. Over a lifetime we go from hunched-over baby to back-a-ching old age. But that doesn't have to be the case! Yoga postures help us to restore the body back to its proper alignment and posture.
For the spine, which is a column of nerves, and muscles in the body, this alignment of the vertebrae is very important for maximum function. To keep our spine healthy, we need to move our entire spine every day. Supported with our hands above our head, sitting in side-bends and back-bends, rolling on the spine and twisting adds movement to the spine.
In yoga though, we do more than just moving the spine. We also tune every part of the body to come together for a single purpose. The integrated body alignment and direction of energy (called “Kundalini ”) that you see in yoga, is paramount for developing health. The alignment of our bodies through yoga is a mindful and intentional practice. You are the one to learn to control your body and improve its overall wellbeing through yoga.
The Right Posture Matters
Yoga is of course, not the only way to correct crooked teeth and improve your overall oral health. But, the mindful posture of yoga cultivates a healthy alignment of your spine, and encourages overall wellness. Yoga will not only straighten your teeth, but its effective postures can improve the function and health of those teeth. Certain yoga postures (asanas) can even inhibit your body from absorbing sugar, the main culprit of tooth decay.
Ujjayi breathing, or “victorious breath” is one such posture. By lengthening the exhale, the body naturally moves towards a straight posture. In fact, any time you are breathing deeply, you naturally move towards a healthy posture. By doing so, you are allowing your body to heal and renew itself.
Bad Posture can Mis-Align your Teeth
Some might be lucky and have a perfect bite. Yet, the truth is bad posture can mis-align your teeth, and if you’re like the rest of us, it’s hard to tell. One of the most common afflictions we suffer from is misaligned teeth. Not only is it unattractive, they can cause a lot of pain. Tooth pain is one of the most common reasons people visit the dentist. This can be because of misaligned teeth. Additionally, you can develop other systemic health problems, such as spinal misalignment and back pain.
Poor postural habits can also make your jaw mis-align, so much so that your jaw is out of alignment with your bite. What may surprise you is that these problems are rarely detected during a dental exam, and often only diagnosed by your dentist when you are already in pain.
Yoga Can Help in TMJ
A very common jaw disease is Temporomandibular Joint Disorder (TMJ). It happens when the upper and lower jaws are not aligned for a length of time. They do not work properly together causing side effects such as headaches, pain when opening or closing the jaw or a clicking sound in the area.
Your jaw joints can benefit from yoga just like other joints in your body. It's important to practice yoga regularly, be consistent, and rest whenever required. The jaw joint has to