The Benefits of Yoga

Some time between the first century BC and the fifth century AD, the Hindu Buddhist monk, Pateñjali, codified the meditative practices that were prevalent in India at the time. He documented techniques that date back almost as far as Indian civilization in his 196 Yoga Sutras, which define yoga as the "yoking" or "holding back" of the mind in order to achieve a state of "pure awareness".

As time went on, yoga began to incorporate elements from gymnastics, wrestling, dance and other physical activities. Nowadays, there are many forms of yoga, but most of them still focus on the three main elements that made yoga what it is today: physical posture, breathing, and spiritual meditation. This combination of physical and mental practice is thought to have many health benefits, such as increasing strength and flexibility, improving heart and lung health, and improving mental health.

What evidence does modern research have about the health benefits of this ancient practice? Despite numerous attempts by researchers, it is difficult to make concrete claims about yoga’s benefits. The combination of yoga’s various activities makes it hard to pinpoint which element is producing a particular health benefit. Furthermore, yoga studies tend to be small, lack diversity, and are heavily reliant on self-reported data, making results subject to bias. However, some health benefits have more robust scientific backing than others.

First, let’s talk about flexibility and strength. When you’re in yoga poses, you’re stretching multiple muscles. In the short-term, stretching changes the water content of your muscles, ligaments and tendons, making them more flexible. Over time, stretching stimulates stem cells, which divide into new muscle cells and other cells that produce elastic collagen. Regular stretching also reduces your body’s reflex to tighten your muscles, increasing your ability to tolerate pain during feats of flexibility.

Yoga has not been proven to increase flexibility more than any other low-impact exercise, so the effects of specific postures are not known. However, research has shown that yoga can reliably improve fitness and flexibility in otherwise healthy populations. Yoga has also been found to be a potentially effective therapeutic tool. Studies involving patients with a range of musculoskeletal disorders showed that yoga was more effective at reducing pain and increasing mobility than other types of low-impact exercises.

Adding yoga to your regular exercise routine can increase strength and flexibility for conditions that are difficult to treat, such as chronic lower back pain (CLL), Rheumatoid arthritis (RA), or osteoporosis (OA).

Yoga’s combination of physical activity and controlled breathing has been shown to be similarly beneficial for lung health.

Lung diseases, such as chronic bronchitis (CBRD), emphysema, and asthma, reduce the airways that carry oxygen to the lungs. These diseases also weaken the membrane that carries oxygen into the bloodstream. Breathing exercises, such as those found in yoga, help to relax the muscles that constrict these airways and increase oxygen diffusion.

Maximizing the oxygen content of the blood is especially beneficial for people whose heart muscles are weak, making it difficult for them to pump enough oxygen around the body. For healthy hearts, increasing the oxygen content in the blood can reduce high blood pressure and lower risk factors for heart disease.

The most well-known benefit of yoga may also be the most challenging to prove. While there is a long-standing connection between yoga and mental health, there is little evidence on how yoga improves mental health. Some of the most popular claims are that yoga relieves symptoms of depression or anxiety disorders. However, the diagnosis and severity of these conditions vary greatly, making it difficult to accurately measure the effects of yoga on mental health. There is some evidence that yoga, meditation, and relaxation can help reduce stress symptoms.

The science behind yoga is still in its early stages. In the years to come, we will need more extensive studies, involving more diverse populations, which will be able to measure the effects of yoga on heart disease, cancer, cognition, and more. In the meantime, yoga can continue to fulfill its ancient purpose as a form of exercise, contemplation, and relaxation.