Anyone who has been to one of my yoga classes, will know that I do like to wax lyrical about the benefits of each of the poses. One of my clients called out on me on this, saying, “How do you actually know inversions slow the aging process?” Hmmmm, good question.
Let’s begin with some basics…
Firstly, yoga is ancient practice which is thousands of years old. Yoga is derived from the Sanskrit ‘Yuji’ which means union. By uniting the body with the breath, we can help to clear the mind. Since yoga incorporates breathing exercises (pranayama) with physical poses (asanas) and conscious relaxation techniques this can lead to significant physical, mental, emotional & spiritual benefits.
Interestingly, what the ancients & we who practice yoga ‘know’, science is beginning to confirm. Michael de Manincour, a Psychologist at the Yoga Institute quotes a study done with a group of people suffering from clinical depression & anxiety. They practiced yoga everyday for 6 weeks versus the control group, also suffering with their mental health, who did not practice yoga.
The yoga group recorded a 33% reduction in depression & anxiety, reduced emotional & mental distress, increased resilience & an increase in the number of positive experiences they recorded along with a reduction in the negative experiences. The control group did not record the same benefits. What is even more staggering, is that those who practiced yoga did so for only an average of 12 minutes a day.
And this is not the only study: try typing ‘scientific benefits of yoga ‘into google & you will come across scores of studies reporting similar results.
We are not only beginning to understand the enormous benefits from yoga but why.
Dr. Loren Fishman explains, ”It (yoga) thickens the layer of the cerebral cortex, the part of the brain associated with higher learning & increased neuroplasticity, which helps us learn new things & change the way we do things.”
Yoga not only benefits our mental health but it also helps us manage stress. There is no doubt we are living in increasingly stressful times. Our neuro-endocrine system has inbuilt mechanisms to help us fight stress. But if we are constantly triggered & not given the opportunity to reset ourselves, then stress hormones flood our system affecting our physical & mental health significantly. Our automatic nervous system has 2 parts: the sympathetic nervous system which is responsible for our fight, flight or freeze response & the parasympathetic nervous system which controls the activities our body does whilst at rest including digestion, healing, sleep, sex, learning & creation.
When these complimentary systems work in harmony, alignment & balance we feel great, harmonious & balanced. When the sympathetic system is overused, the balance is upset which creates dis-ease: illness & disease. Yoga helps us to restore balance because it activates the parasympathetic nervous system, balancing the hormones of stress, allowing our body to heal.
In yoga we work with our body & our breath to restore calm in our minds. This works on many levels. First the breath. It is one of the most powerful ways to impact stress. Longer smoother breaths send a powerful message to the brain & balance our automatic nervous system. We can also reduce our blood pressure by slowing the rate of our breath. But yoga also helps to bring our mind into focus & coherence. Try standing on 1 leg if you are thinking about something else. Indeed, you can often tell how much someone has going on in their mind, by how easily they can stand on one leg. Try balancing on your hands and arms, which is almost impossible if your mind is wandering or ruminating. By focusing on what we are doing physically, this focuses our mind & this helps to change our brains. It’s called neuroplasticity. And this focus & coherence is incredibly healing.
Advances in science & the advent of MRI scanners have enabled us to see how meditative practices (& yes yoga is a meditative practice) can change the structure & activity within the brain.
By using MRI scans, we can monitor the activity in our prefrontal cortex. When we are balancing, we can see on MRI scans that redirecting our thought patterns helps to create new circuits in the prefrontal cortex, which helps us access these in times of stress, when we need them. Not only are we beginning to be able to actually see the changes in the brain from practicing yoga & meditation but advancements in molecular & cellular biology & science are beginning to show biomedical changes in our neurons & the functioning of the body at both cellular & molecular levels. Almost every week there is a new body of evidence being published about how yoga impacts our body at this micro level.
And since there is so much to share regarding the science behind yoga we will expand upon this next time.
If you would like to put some of these scientific benefits to the test & practice yoga with Alex her YouTube channel offers free short classes for everyone & is available here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQlKZJ7MeyYc6lqkv6seISw
Alternatively all of her classes are streamed on live on Zoom, for more information message her at alex@alexbannard.com
Free resources are also available on her Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/AlexBannardYogaMindfulness
And her website is www.alexbannard.com
Alex is based on the edge of the stunning Cotswolds & has been sharing her love for all things yoga & mindfulness for almost a decade, not just in the UK but also around the world. Her mission is to help everyone discover a more mindful way of living & to encourage them to embrace regular self-care practices for a happier & healthier way of being.