For many, spring symbolizes change and renewal. We’re more likely to try new diets, work-out routines and healthier lifestyles. As a teacher and student of yoga, I’ve observed and experienced its benefits. While there’s never a perfect time to start a new routine, Yoga For A Healthy Spring, personally, it seems spring is the best season to begin.

From the start, I was fortunate to gain flexibility and upper body strength early on in my yoga practice. Immediately, I discover a peaceful calm during and after yoga. But I also found certain poses were more challenging than others. Some yoga poses took more time and practice. During the process of learning these poses,  I realized yoga requires patience, persistence and compassion.

Practicing yoga results in a variety of health benefits. From lengthening and increasing muscle flexibility to decreasing blood pressure, respiration and heart rate. Yoga’s practical techniques encourage relaxation and healing. And yoga’s breath work and meditation, replenishes mind, body and spirit, whisking away, for example, preoccupations that bother you while awake and restlessness that interferes with sound sleep.

According to The American Chiropractic Association, over 31 million Americans suffer from lower back pain. The causes of lower back pain vary, from minor injury resulting in a sprain back to chronic conditions such as arthritis or spinal stenosis. While it is difficult to determine the etiology of lower back pain, one thing is certain: it’s chronic and debilitating, with sufferers constantly aware that any sudden movement can cause spasms and other types of discomfort.

If you’re new to yoga, and thinking about starting by taking it as part of a group, there are some things you should keep in mind that will ensure that you have a good instructor and experience.

It took several years after I started teaching yoga to try to meditate. Here I am a yoga teacher and not meditating. It was sort of sacrilegious. I was well aware of the all the health benefits meditation has to offer and I understood deep down inside that it was a practice I needed, that it would help me and that I would come to at one point or another in my life.