The Truth about your Yoga Mat

The marketing of yoga mats has increased in recent years as the popularity of yoga has increased. These wonderful soft and sticky mats come in various colors now, from the known blue to deep greens and purples, some with even beautiful floral and nature motifs. They are cool indeed and makes you want to own a few to make your yoga practice more fashionable.

Practicing yoga with such soothing images as nature and flowers and ocean seems appropriate, what is ironic however is that practitioners are passionately pursuing their healthy habit on a dangerously toxic mat. Yoga mats are made out of the most toxic plastic, polyvinyl chloride, which is the base ingredient in PVC and a known carcinogen. PVC isn't even biodegradable, hard to recycle and when caught on fire in the landfill, it releases dioxin and other toxins.

I discovered this truth about my yoga mat when I became pregnant the first time, and while researching the many toxins that can have a negative effect on the fetus, I came across articles about yoga mats and PVC. I threw away my favorite blue mat and continued my yoga practice on the floor. But today we have other choices, there are eco yoga mats that have eliminated the plastic components and have no synthetic additives, and on top they are compostable. It is important to take care of our environment and putting away our existing mats for the more eco friendly ones is a good start. Make the change, after all we are into the yoga practice partly for our health and well being.

An Eco Yoga mat with great reviews.

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