What Is Aerial Yoga?
Aerial yoga is a practice that combines classic yoga, pilates, aerobics, and acrobatics with the use of aerial hammocks such as aerial silk. This can help to achieve gentle stretching of the body, mental calmness, and spiritual health. The hammocks, such as yoga silk or ropes hung on the ceiling, help provide support and make different poses by improving flexibility and facilitating a wide range of motions throughout the yoga instead of making poses on the floor.
The hammock relieves pressure from specific body parts, such as the head and shoulders, which can help create difficult poses that are not normally done on the floor but can be done easily in aerial yoga. Though aerial yoga implies that the body is fully in the air, in most cases, it uses only the foot or leg to take off from the floor to make many poses.
The body is either fully hung in the hammock or wrapped around certain body parts to gently stretch the body without losing balance and increase self-confidence. The hammocks reduce the load on the wrists and knees, which can resist the movements on the floor and allow for a wide range of poses with their support. Aerial yoga practice can also be done at home with some precautions. Aerial yoga does not require body strength as it does in other forms of yoga.
What Are the Benefits of Aerial Yoga?
Many benefits of aerial yoga can be described as health, mental, and fitness.
Health benefits include
-
Promote Blood Circulation: Aerial yoga poses help improve blood circulation through inversions, and doing this regularly improves concentration and energy. Aerial yoga reduces the risk of cardiovascular disease and improves digestion by improving blood circulation.
-
Improve Digestion: Aerial yoga creates gentle body stretches to help enhance digestion. It can also improve digestive problems like indigestion and constipation. It can help to provide relief from irritable bowel syndrome.
-
Decompress the Spine: Aerial yoga poses like inversions help to relieve the spine from compression by realigning the spine to its original position and reducing the strain on the back by creating less tension in the hip joint, thereby relieving the back pain.
-
Cleanse the Body: Generally, yoga is meant to cleanse the body, mind, and spirit. Likewise, aerial yoga helps to cleanse the body by removing pollutants with the help of the circulatory and lymphatic systems and reverting to their original state.
-
Improve Stability: Aerial yoga helps to improve the balance of day-to-day activities by practicing antigravity yoga postures. It can also promote faster recovery from injuries.
-
Improve Body’s Functions: Aerial yoga helps to enhance the functions of the circulatory, respiratory, and digestive systems to cope with aging symptoms.
Mental benefits include
-
Stimulate the Brain Function: Aerial yoga helps to stimulate the brain function by improving the blood circulation to the brain through inversion postures and also by improving memory, concentration, and clear vision of thoughts, thereby retaining the brain capacity for a longer time.
-
Reduce Stress: Aerial yoga allows one to experience the present instead of worrying about the past by enhancing moods and creativity. The practice can reduce stress and mood swings by relaxing the mind.
-
Induce Sleep: Aerial yoga induces sleep by stimulating the body and releasing hormones like endorphins and serotonin.
-
Improve Focus: Aerial Yoga practice helps one think about life in newer aspects and improves concentration by making one aware of the body’s posture.
-
Enjoy the Practice: Everyone enjoys the experience of inversions and wants to try different poses using hammocks.
Fitness benefits include
-
Learn New Body Skills: Aerial yoga makes the body stretch effectively and does not limit the movements as much as classic yoga limits certain poses. Some may find it difficult to make certain poses in classic yoga but may do them easily in aerial yoga.
-
Improve Core Muscle Tone: Aerial yoga helps grow stronger by strengthening the core muscles, which are mostly used in practice.
-
Increase Whole Body Strength and Flexibility: Aerial yoga reduces muscle tension by practicing in the air and simultaneously using both the upper and lower body, making the whole body's muscles stronger and stretchier.
How to Practice Aerial Yoga at Home in a Safe Manner?
The following are tips for practicing yoga at home:
-
The home has enough space and anchor points on the ceiling to hang the yoga swing.
-
A yoga hammock is a necessary piece of equipment for practicing aerial yoga. Without hammocks, there is no use in practicing aerial yoga.
-
Aerial yoga should be done under proper guidance to avoid injuries and ensure that the hammocks are properly fixed every time before practicing, as the setups might loosen.
-
Take some fruits to prevent low glucose levels in the blood rather than having a meal before yoga.
-
Do yoga that feels comfortable and according to the present health status.
-
Not recommended for pregnant women and people with uncontrolled blood pressure, heart disease, and eye problems like cataracts.
-
Be hydrated before and after yoga, and ensure do not eat one hour before yoga, as yoga practice is mostly associated with core muscles.
-
Wear fitted clothes rather than loose clothes, and also wear full-sleeved clothes to prevent soreness from hammocks.
-
Keep focused on yoga and believe in hammocks.
-
It is necessary to stretch and warm the body before starting aerial yoga.
Conclusion:
Aerial yoga is an effective alternative to classic yoga, which can make experiencing the fun of doing poses in the air while gaining the benefits of working out and enhancing physical, mental, and spiritual health. It is an emerging, fun way of practicing yoga that has the same benefits as classic yoga.
