What To Expect At A Hot Yoga Class

Hot Yoga is increasingly popular and for very good reason, carrying out the exercises to Hot Yoga has many benefits and can really help with stabilizing your physical, mental and spiritual well-being. 

The Creator Of Hot Yoga

Hot yoga was created by Bikram Choudhury and it is a form of yoga as exercise performed under hot and humid conditions, resulting in considerable sweating. Some hot yoga practices seek to replicate the heat and humidity of India, where yoga originated. Bikram Choudhury has suggested that the heated environment of Bikram Yoga helps to prepare the body for movement and to remove impurities. increased the temperature of the studios while in Japan to represent the heat of India. Bikram Yoga became popular in the early 1970s after Choudhury moved to the United States. The style incorporates 24 asanas and 2 breathing exercises along with a room heated to 105 °F (41 °C). Each class is 90 minutes long and has a fixed sequence of movements. The class ends with a two-minute savasana (corpse pose). Bikram yoga is just one style of hot yoga. Other popular hot yoga options include the Canadian import Moksha yoga (known as Modo yoga in the United States) and CorePower yoga, a rapidly expanding chain. Many locally-owned and independent yoga studios offer their own style of heated classes as well.

During Your Hot Yoga Class 

As you can imagine, a vigorous yoga session at high temperatures makes the body very warm and induces profuse sweating. Do not be put off by the excessive sweating though as it does bring plenty of benefits because the intent is that the heat loosens your muscles and the sweat helps cleanse your body. Looser muscles help with flexibility and profuse sweating helps with the losing of calories. Hot Yoga can also really help with mental health as it can lower emotional reactivity, reduce inflammation in the body, lower cortisol, increase mindfulness and reduce perceived stress. Hot Yoga can really have an all round positive impact on your body. 

On a practical level you will need to bring along a yoga mat, specifically a no slip mat as this will help with being steady when carrying out the poses. A water bottle as your excessive sweating will lead to your body losing fluid and risking dehydration so bringing a water bottle is vital to rehydration and recovery after your session is over. Consider using practical clothing too that will help with the stretches and poses, try and make the experience as easy as possible for yourself. The equipment needed for hot yoga is very minimal so you don’t have to go to extreme expenses to get involved which is great. As the poses are the same during each session you will become confident in your abilities and you will know exactly what is required pretty quickly and you can then begin to gradually push yourself for each session to increase your flexibility and become fully involved in the hot yoga experience.