Are you getting confused as to what form of exercise to have with your pet? Perhaps walking your dog isn’t ideal if there’s no park in your neighborhood. If you’re in dire need of exercise that you can also do indoors with your pet, there’s a trend that you can try together: yoga.
Yoga is a great form of exercise because it enables you to relax. After a long stressful day at work, everyone can use a breather. It’s also easy to do right inside your home since it doesn’t require any major or heavy equipment. It has numerous health benefits, too. And now, a bonus is that you can do yoga with your pets.
Yoga is one of the most natural exercises for you to let your pets join in. Doing so has a host of health benefits, such as:
1. It Helps Alleviate Tension And Stress
With the stressful lives that people live today, it’s no wonder that the desire to alleviate tension and stress has increased. After working hard the whole day, you need to have a form of stress relief upon reaching your home to wake up refreshed the next day. Otherwise, the stress and the tension will only keep piling up.
The same holds for your pets, too. Some dogs experience distress when their owners leave them the entire day to go to work. If you come home in a bad mood, your pets can also absorb this negative energy. Hence, you might notice their behavior changing, or they could be harder to control. And your pets are also able to actually improve your mood, here is how that happens, pinpointed by www.restedpaws.co.uk.
Studios offering yoga practice with pets such as Yoga Kawa could help in this situation. This practice could be beneficial for you and your pet due to the following:
- It can help you avoid adrenal fatigue. This type of fatigue happens because the adrenal glands on top of your kidneys produce more stress hormones when you’re under so much tension. If not controlled, it could lead to inflammation and depression.
- It improves your immune system. When you’re stressed, chemical changes occur in the body, releasing hormones such as dopamine and adrenaline. When released in higher amounts every day, it can eventually hurt your immune system.
- It could prevent memory problems. One constant factor can affect a human’s ability to think, and that’s stress. Chronic stress is linked to higher chances of developing dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, particularly for the elderly.
2. It Improves Cardiovascular Health
Yoga is a heart booster both for you and your pet. While it may be a gentler form of exercise, it’s an excellent cardio workout because of its poses. You’ll notice that at the end of a session, your body will feel a lot better. Plus, you sweat it out, too, indicating that you’ve just undergone a good cardiovascular workout.
Like human beings, dogs need a good daily stretch to improve their heart health, too. It’s particularly important for dogs to be more active since they’re often sedentary, especially if you live in an apartment complex where there isn’t much room to move around. If you don’t have much time to walk your pet, doing yoga could indeed be beneficial for you both.
Here’s how yoga improves cardiovascular health for you and your pet:
- It promotes physical activity. You may have heard that having at least thirty minutes of daily physical activity is needed to stay healthy. Physical inactivity is one of the leading causes of heart diseases, so you need to get yourself and your pet moving. Yoga will definitely make you move.
- It lowers blood pressure and cholesterol level Because you now have physical activity and can sweat it out, you’re now able to burn out all the excess fat you may have accumulated through your meals. As a result, your body’s cholesterol and blood pressure level will lower.
3. It Promotes Better Sleep
Thanks to yoga exercises, you and your dog will have a better ability to sleep. Through yoga, you can release all the negative energy and anxiety that you may have felt throughout the day. Had you brought these with you to bed, you’ll find that sleeping will be quite difficult. You’ll end up twisting and turning in bed because your mind stays active. Plus, you’ll still be thinking of all the problems that you’ve gone through.
Yoga takes away this sleep challenge. By the time you reach your bedroom, both you and your pet will feel lighter and better. This happy feeling increases your ability to fall asleep faster and longer. You’ll also find yourself waking up feeling more relaxed than usual. This change is due to the fact that yoga enables the relaxation of the nervous system—yours and your dog’s.
By the end of the class, you’ll find that both you and your pet will feel more relaxed. Your pet could end up cuddling beside you or even chilling on top of you. This comfortable feeling helps to promote better sleep for both of you. The effect is similar to that of mom and baby yoga classes, wherein the yoga exercises are tailored to help the mom and her baby have a better sleep during the difficult infancy stage.
Aside from having a better sleep, you’ll also experience a bonus if you have pets with behavioral issues. Rather than load your pet with medication that might lead to chemical dependency, why not try more natural and gentler relaxation techniques? With prolonged yoga practice, you’ll find that your pet will be better able to manage their behavior since they’ll be trained to be calmer. A calm and behaved pet could also become a better sleeper.
Conclusion
If you hear someone say that they’ve been practicing ‘doga’ as exercise, now you know what it means: yoga practice with a dog. If you have a cat, you can do this with them as well.
However, as with other forms of exercise, remember to take it easy, too. While yoga, in general, isn’t too excruciating for the body, it doesn’t mean that doing the poses would be very easy. Make the transition a tad easier for you and your dog until you both get the hang of it. You’ll eventually see that you not only have a good exercise option, but you’ll also find a great new way to bond and spend time with your pet.