Contributed by Cindi Pearce, Catalogs.com Top 10 Guru

If you’ve got yourself convinced that yoga is new age, hocus-pocus nonsense you have got yourself convinced wrong.

Yoga is a wonderful form of exercise and it’s accommodating. Even ‘old folk’ can do it. There are many, many reasons why you should roll out that mat and learn how to do the sun salutation.

Here are the top ten health benefits of yoga:

10. Social

You can meet some hotties in yoga class. That could be one reason, although not the best reason, to buy a color-coordinated yoga mat and take up yoga. Romance crops up in the strangest places.

9. Destress

If you are stressed out, exhausted, mean, cranky, hostile, confrontation or just plain mad as hell you really need to consider doing yoga, which places an emphasis on breathing correctly and purposely. This calms you down. In time, you learn how to do your yoga breathing any time you are in a trying situation. Just breatheeeeeeeee………

8. Height

If you want to look longer and leaner and taller this is your ticket. Yoga improves your posture so that you stand taller, carry yourself better and as a result look taller and thinner.

7. Flexibility

Contortionism. You can be the life of the party. Get in the center of the room and do the plough or the lotus position or a yoga headstand, and you are sure to be the star attraction. Your newly learned contortionism may come in “handy” in certain rooms of the house. (Think bedroom.)

6. Immunity

Ward off infections and disease by enhancing your immune system, which occurs when you regularly do yoga. Yoga may be better than any vitamin or antibiotic. Try it out for size.

5. Back relief

If your back is killing you, yoga helps de-compress your spine and relieves back pain. Your entire body alignment improves, which is a back pain solution. When doing yoga, you strengthen your core, which is your mid section. When you get stronger in this area both your overall strength and posture improve. When you are stronger, you are less like to become injured, and you heal faster if you do sustain an injury. When your posture is better, you look better.

4. Easy

You can sit and even lie down while you’re doing it. Seriously. Many of the postures are done from a sitting or lying position. Any time you can sit or lie down on “the job” and still see and feel results go for it!

3. Better body

Acquire a yoga body. Yep, there is such a thing. It might not be attained over night, but it will happen gradually. You may not end up looking like Madonna, and perhaps have no aspirations of that, but your body will look better and you will feel better. At any rate, with some work, you’ll feel sexy and fit in your yoga clothes. It’s a no-brainer.

2. Pain threshold

An interesting outcome of doing yoga is that yogis have a higher threshold when it comes to pain. If you suffer from acute or chronic pain doing yoga may make it more tolerable and may even lessen the pain.

1. Regularity

If your body is going to pot and your blood pressure and cholesterol levels are too high and your circulation is lousy, yoga helps ward off these conditions. Practicing yoga decreases blood pressure because oxygen flows more freely throughout your body. Your circulation improves, which makes your organs, including your skin, healthier. When you do yoga, you essentially massage your internal organs and this helps, among other things, your gastrointestinal tract. In other words, you go to the bathroom easier and more regularly. Say good-bye to constipation.