To perform triangle pose, Trikonasana, stretch your arms and firm your leg muscles while keep your toes and face relaxed. It's tougher than it looks, but with a little patience and practice the pose will teach your body valuable lessons to release tension in everyday tasks.

Why do yoga? What benefits does it bring? And what if I’m not young and flexible — does that mean I can’t do it? These are questions people new to yoga often ask, and we’ll do our best to address them in this new feature, Yoga Central.

Here is one example of a benefit accessible to anyone, experienced or beginner. When you do a yoga pose, there are some muscles you need to engage and some you don’t. For instance, in triangle pose — Trikonasana — you stretch your arms and firm your leg muscles while keeping other muscles, like those of your toes and face, relaxed.

Many people, in yoga and in daily life, will contract muscles that aren’t necessary for what they’re doing. One of the benefits of yoga is that it teaches you bodily awareness and control so that you can engage the necessary muscles while relaxing others. You learn to “relax into the pose” — to do the work of the pose while keeping the rest of your body and mind relaxed and calm.

These skills carry over into your everyday life by helping you notice when you’re tensing muscles unnecessarily so you can release them. For example, you might be gripping the steering wheel while waiting at a red light, or tightening your abdomen and not breathing easily while sitting at the computer. Once you notice the tension, you can learn to let it go, just like in yoga.

Most people have chronic habits like these that create accumulated muscular tension that is always present in their lives. Once you start noticing, you’re likely to find it occurs multiple times every day. You detect the tension, release the tension, briefly focus on something else, notice the tension again, release again, and so on.

Yoga teaches your body which muscles need to be engaged and which don’t, and to relax tensions as they occur. By building these habits of awareness through yoga practice, you can bring an overall sense of peace and calmness to your life.

Jack Krebs is on the administrative staff at the Yoga Center of Lawrence, 920 Massachusetts St. For more about poses and programs, call 785-830-9642 or visit yogacenteroflawrence.org. Find the Yoga Center on Facebook here.