What Are The Benefits Of Aerial Yoga?

All styles of yoga are thought to offer similar benefits: it's about engaging with your body, relaxing, learning to focus and using your breathing to work into positions. It's associated with a wealth of benefits that have at least some scientific backing, from increased joint health through protection from osteoporosis and arthritis to mood enhancement. 

1: Better For People With Upper Back And Neck Problems

Yoga inversions, like headstands and variations, help improve blood flow to the upper body and can help with circulation and relaxation. But they also put immense pressure on the neck and upper back, especially if preexisting conditions mean the upper back and neck is less supple and more prone to new injuries as a result. Aerial yoga means it's possible to do inversions without weight on the upper back and neck. You can adapt the amount of force you're putting on your arms, moving slings and handles to achieve the right balance. The benefits of traditional yoga practice can be yours without the well-documented dangers of excessive inversions on an inflexible neck.

2: Pleasure

Yoga isn't meant to be a roller coaster. It's about running your attention inward, focusing on gradually allowing yourself to improve rather than pushing yourself or competing with others. But every yoga class has an outward form, and for some people it can be a little dull. Just as the 1970s stereotype of patchouli and cheesecloth put some people off, so the static postures of more traditional yoga don't suit everyone.

3: Strength

Aerial yoga is scaleable, just like ground-based yoga. On the ground, you might use blocks or slings, as well as adjusting the pose itself. In the air, you can adjust the pose — but you can also move the slings. Aerial poses including planks with support moving around your body puts more stress on your core than traditional ground-based yoga, meaning you're getting more of a core workout. "The more you play with the position of your feet, the more body weight you put into it, and that is what will shred your abs," says aerial yogi Samantha Chang.

Read More: A 10-Minute Yoga Workout for Beginners

4: Spinal Decompression

Our spinal bones are part of a system that also includes muscles and soft tissues, and the tough fibrous discs between our vertebrae. These discs are compressible and throughout the day and through our lives they get thinner: many of us are as much as two inches shorter when we go to bed than we are when we get up, largely thanks to compression of the spinal discs. Traditional yoga offers some decompression benefits, but there's nothing like hanging from the ceiling to stretch the spine and decompress the spinal discs, allowing the spine to relax and rejuvenate.