Trying Yoga after Weight Loss Surgery

Posted: Mar 29 in Weight Loss Blog by Staff

There’s a reason that yoga has stayed popular for thousands of years: it can have countless benefits for your body and your mind. Yoga’s meditative nature can induce a powerful calm in practitioners, while the challenges of the poses can help you build strength and flexibility.

Due to its gentle, low-impact nature, yoga is one activity you may be interested in trying after gastric bypass, sleeve gastrectomy or gastric band surgery in Ft. Myers or Naples, but it’s important to do so cautiously. As with any other exercise, you should check with your weight loss surgeon before jumping in and spend time learning the basics to reduce your risk of injury. With time and a careful approach, you can take advantage of yoga’s many benefits without overstraining your body.

The Benefits of Yoga

Though yoga comes in many different forms, each uses poses that engage different muscles of your body to build strength and flexibility. It may seem like you need to be able to bend into a pretzel before even trying yoga, but poses can be modified to fit your needs, helping you gradually become more limber as your range of motion improves. It has an effect on both your muscles and your joints, with one study showing that participants improved their flexibility as much as 35 percent after eight weeks of practice.

Of course, yoga is about more than just poses—the practice also emphasizes deep breathing, which can be a big help with relaxation. Many people find that yoga helps them improve their concentration, mood and stress levels, largely due to its effects on stress hormones produced by the adrenal glands. Studies have also shown that yoga can be helpful for people with heart disease by lowering blood pressure and slowing heart rate, while it also provides benefits for those with asthma, arthritis, back pain and insomnia.

Getting Started

If you think yoga sounds like a good fit after bariatric surgery and your doctor has given you the OK, get started by:

• Looking for a class. You have plenty of options when it comes to yoga studios in Naples and Ft. Myers. Finding a good studio with an attentive teacher is one of the best ways to start doing yoga, as it will help you understand the basics through one-on-one interaction.
• Going online. After learning the ropes from an instructor, you can help yourself practice with the many free online tools available for yoga. Yoga Today offers many free videos on its YouTube channel that will walk you through different poses and routines.
• Making time. Yoga will only help if you stick with it. For the best results, you should practice every day, even if you only have time to squeeze in a few poses or breathing exercises.

If you’re interested in joining the 11 million Americans who already practice yoga, just be sure to do so carefully after sleeve gastrectomy, gastric bypass or gastric band in Ft. Myers or Naples. Have you tried yoga? Tell us about your experiences in the comments.