Blankets - Although I don't often use them, blankets can offer many benefits. They can help support you in poses, they provide padding, and they also provide warmth so you can be very comfortable in restorative poses.

Less Common Yoga Props

Backbend Benches - They help to support you during backbends. They reduce straining and allow your spine to maintain proper alignment while increasing flexibility in your shoulders, chest and front of your body.

Eye Pillows - They are soft cushions that you place on your eyes to help you focus inward and achieve a greater sense of peace and calmness during relaxation poses.

There are times when using a yoga prop can help you deepen your practice, and during those times, you might want to consider using one or all of these props. At other times, you might not feel need to use them. The important thing is to pay attention to your body and to respond to what it needs each time you practice.

Another benefit of yoga is mental.

Yoga clears your mind and helps you focus your attention. – During your practice, you are focusing your attention on your breath and turning inward. This concentration allows you to withdraw from distractions in your environment. A significant benefit of yoga practice is that you can take this ability to focus your attention into every aspect of your life. You can be fully present with whatever you are doing instead of worrying about tomorrow or regretting yesterday. Not only will your actions be more productive, you can also enjoy them in a greater way.

Yoga helps reduces stress. - Deep breathing helps reduce hormones that are released when you are feeling overwhelmed, overloaded, and frazzled. The internal focus that accompanies poses helps create a relaxation response in your body.

Yoga can help release stuck emotions. – Often stuck emotions find their way into our bodies. Remember, your mind and body are one, and if you are suppressing any painful emotions, you will often experience that as pain in some part of your body. A benefit of yoga is that by breathing deeply into places in your body that hold tension, you can help release emotions that may be buried there. You can then examine these emotions and let go of those that do not serve you.

Also, as you take your body past limits of where it has been, you start to feel that you can move past other limitations in your life as well.

You gain a sense of peace and tranquility. - Most yoga practices include some time for meditation. Regular meditation helps your mind reach a state of inner calm. It helps you gain control over your thinking instead of being at mercy of wayward thoughts.

As you can see, benefit of yoga has far reaching effects in every area of your life. Maintain a regular yoga practice, and you will see for yourself, how yoga can benefit you too.