What it comes right down to is....
Yoga makes you feel good.
And, to paraphrase the effervescent trickster know as Timothy Leary,
"You can't do good unless you feel good"
I came to yoga after suffering severe head trauma in a cycling accident. Fractured skull. Subdural hematoma. Swelling of the brain. I got a "Nabavi Cut", A clean incision named after the doctor who performed the surgery on my brain to release the pressure. Right above the hairline.
As I was wheeled into the operating room, I thought,
"It's the first time in my life I have to let go!"
I came out of surgery. I couldn't admit it at the time but my life as I knew it up to then was over. What did show was a loss of direction, depression, and a disdain for anti-seizure medicine.
I began to do yoga.
I woke in the morning feeling like shit (Please don't be offended. That's what it felt like)
I would do a yoga practice and feel better.
I woke the next morning feeling like shit.
I would do a yoga practice and feel better.
Soon it be came clear...
"Why don't I do this every day?"
EMDR? Polyvagal Theory? Mindfulness? Breathwork? Post-Traumatic Growth? Cross-Education Effect? Neuroplasticity? This was 1989. What I didn't know then that I know now is that those yoga classes that just "made me feel good" incorporated all those now-recognized healing, rewiring, and balancing modalities before these modalities were known.
That's a lot of value in one class or session.
More carrot and less stick.
More treat and less treatment.
Think about it.
Why do yoga?
Because it makes you feel good !
...
High love and yeehah...