By: Vivek Roy, yoga blogger and traveler from India
In the current advancing world, Yoga is becoming more and more popular every passing day. People often have an incorrect or incomplete idea of the meaning of Yoga. Yoga is way more than just attaining different physical postures. It is a way of attaining inner peace and discovering ourselves. Today many people are living a rushed urban lifestyle that includes engaging in an endless cycle of stress, anxiety, and tension. In this scenario, many of these people (largely due to the internet) try to obtain their inner calm through practicing Yoga and Meditation. Yoga surely has endless physical and mental benefits, but these pros can be extended to their full potential if Yoga is practiced at a location that is far from home and close to nature. This program is known as Yoga Retreat. Yoga Retreat can provide a great deal of spiritual and emotional relief. Such a retreat focuses on the deeper objectives of performing Yoga and enables their achievements. Among the numerous benefits of Yoga Retreats, here are the seven most important ones:
1. Embracing Positivity – Among all the factors contributing to a person’s anxiety the company of negative people is still the most decisive factor in leading an unhealthy life. Going on Yoga Retreats provides an opportunity of meeting up and make friends with new people and as these people are also part of the same program it creates a wholly positive environment. Meeting up with like-minded people and listening to their own stories relieves anxiety and depression as it takes the focus away from your issues. These people motivate and assist you in achieving your personal goals as you help them achieve theirs. Yoga Retreats happen at a location that is close to nature, and nature has a tremendous healing energy that guides one to their inner peace.
2. Achieving Mindfulness – Mindfulness is a practice of letting go and relaxing into the present moment as it is. Since the beginning of civilization, practicing mindfulness has been known to cure depression and anxiety among human beings. Practicing it might not be so difficult, but to remember practicing mindfulness is extremely difficult. Yoga Retreats are a seven-day or ten-day trips that are made solely for relaxation that motivates one to practice mindfulness through yoga for a prolonged period, thus, improving mental health. These retreats usually take place close to nature that assists in achieving mindfulness to a great extent.
3. Cure Over-thinking – As a famous saying goes “A mind that over-thinks every little thing is a mind destined for destruction”. Due to a lack of purpose and understanding, something that is supposed to be utterly harmless may cause a person to overthink it and convert that situation in a negative one. Needless to say, this habit has drastic effects on one’s mental and social health. Yoga Retreat can be a great way to achieve a point of complete inner peace that in turn relieves a person from thinking too much of a situation and get a better perspective of how life works. Breaking from the routine cycle helps a lot to avoid over-thinking and live a positively healthy life.
4. Detoxication – Yoga retreats, along with the yoga practices guided by professional trainers also provide food that is natural in all ways and these features of these retreats make them suitable for a comprehensive physical and mental detoxication of the body. A person visiting a Yoga Retreat can expect to come back home completely rejuvenated and feeling refreshed. The major objects of these retreats are to relax and provide pleasure to the soul of the individuals that are part of it so, no matter what your objectives are, you will surely feel refreshed and renewed after going back home post-retreat.
5. Give up old habits – A person in his normal daily routine is prone to developing many habits that do not exactly fall into the category of healthy habits. These habits not only prevent that person from living a healthy life, but also from living a happy one. Attending Yoga Retreats not only enables us to drop old and toxic habits, but also provides resources to develop new healthy ones. One can make efforts to carry these habits home along even after the retreat is finished and to take the magic of the Yoga Retreat. This also implies that the benefits arising from Yoga Retreats are not only limited until the period of such a Retreat, but they extend to the daily life after the retreat as well.
6. Discover Oneself – One might sometimes confuse a retreat from a vacation, but they are completely different things. On a vacation, we are relaxed but still focused on doing stuff and visiting places, but at a Yoga Retreat the main focus is on seeking inner peace and identifying the soul. These Yoga Retreats are a way of retrieving solutions to the questions that one’s mind has been seeking for a very long time. It assists the practitioner in connecting his physical body to its soul and sorts out the meaning of its existence. A person having known the meaning of life and purpose of its existence leads a life that is way better than the person still looking for answers.
7. Improve your health – You must have heard of Baba Ramdev, right? He is one of the major celebrities in India who shed light on the various advantages of performing Yoga Daily. As evident from history and approved by the doctors all over the globe, performing Yoga helps tackle various diseases in a way that comprehensively cures such a disease. A regular visit to these Yoga Retreats can result in such several health benefits (both physical & mental) that knows no bounds.
While these may be the major benefits arising from Yoga Retreats, it doesn’t mean that they are only ones. The popularity of Yoga Retreat Camps has been drastically increased over the past few years courtesy of rising awareness programs acknowledging their benefits.
About the author: Vivek Roy is an enthusiastic Yoga blogger and Traveller from India. He has done yoga teacher training in India. He loves to travel and share the knowledge of yoga around the world. For more information about him visit his website.
I just wanted to remark that your essay is rather astonishing. Your post is quite well-written, and I can tell you’re an expert on the issue. With your permission, I’d like to subscribe to your feed so that I may stay up to date on future posts. Thank you very much, and please keep up the excellent work.