The best thing about practicing yoga isn’t the ability to hold a perfect headstand or to balance your body weight on just two arms. For all the flexibility and strength that you can develop through yoga, many of the biggest benefits of yoga and similar practices are mental. It’s the lessons you learn about presence and breathing that will help ease your stress and relax your body, and even beginners can reap these benefits.
And there are so many types of movement-based practices that can help enrich your body and mind. Pilates, Barre and many ancient practices such as Tai Chi and Qi Gong not only strengthen the body but centre the mind. Tai Chi’s gentle physical exercises flow from one posture to the next, promoting serenity and connecting the body and soul. Qi Gong, another martial arts-based practice, also combines Chinese medicine and philosophy. Viewed as an exercise to cultivate balance, Qi Gong focuses on the five elements of wood, fire, earth, metal and water, to create flow in our bodies.
