The Benefits of Yoga

You’ve likely heard about the many benefits of yoga that go beyond alleviating or buffering against mental illness; benefits like:

• It builds confidence
• It helps you learn to breathe, both literally and metaphorically
• It makes you more aware of your posture at all times
• It makes you more mindful
• It boosts your strength and endurance
• It helps relieve stress (Rues, n.d.)

Aside from the anecdotal stories about the wonders of regular yoga practice, there is also peer-reviewed evidence to support the benefits of yoga. For example, reviews of the literature suggest that yoga is at least somewhat effective in lessening symptoms of depression, reducing fatigue, relieving anxiety, and reducing or acting as a buffer against stress, and often boosts participants’ feelings of self-confidence and self-esteem (Büssing, Michalsen, Khalsa, Telles, & Sherman, 2012).

Yoga can be especially helpful for those struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Several studies on yoga applied to PTSD treatment show that yoga can have outcomes similar to those of talk therapy (Novotney, 2009). The results of yoga on PTSD symptoms highlights this link between the body and the brain, and the potential of yoga to facilitate that connection and skip right over the barrier.

Many PTSD symptoms are physical, such as the increased heart rate and perspiration that sometimes accompany “flashbacks” or vivid memories of trauma. Yoga may be especially helpful in addressing symptoms such as these, as it can target the physical symptoms of stress, anxiety, fear, and depression.

The Physical Benefits of Yoga

“The beauty is that people often come here for the stretch, and leave with a lot more.” – Liza Ciano

Overall, although yoga may seem like a relatively mild form of exercise, regular yoga practice can result in the same health benefits as many other types of exercise but with less of an impact on joints and more relaxation!

In addition to having the same impacts on general health as other types of exercise, there is some evidence that yoga is even more beneficial than most types of exercise when it comes to:

• Increasing balance
• Improving baroreflex sensitivity
• Reducing fatigue
• Enhancing flexibility
• Healthy heart rate
• Healthy heart rate variability
• Improved kidney function
• Lessened or buffered menopausal symptoms
• Relieving pain
• Relieving or inhibiting psychotic symptoms
• Improving quality of life
• Reducing sleep disturbances
• Improving social and occupational functioning
• Increasing strength
• Lowering obesity
• Reducing stress
• Reducing cholesterol (Ross & Thomas, 2009; Ross, Friedmann, Bevans, & Thomas, 2013)

Yoga can also help you beat the symptoms of insomnia and depression and boost your energy, happiness, and encourage a healthy weight.

In one study, participants who engaged in a daily 45-minute yoga practice right before going to bed for eight weeks experienced tremendous decreases in the severity of their insomnia (Novotney, 2009).

In another study, participants who practiced yoga more regularly were also more likely to report higher energy, better moods, greater happiness, more fulfilling relationships with others, and more satisfied lives in general (Ross et al., 2013).

Finally, an overview on the general benefits of yoga found that those who engage in the practice regularly often experience increases in self-efficacy and self-confidence, along with enhancements in balance, flexibility, strength, and weight loss (Büssing et al., 2012). The same study found that yoga has been reported to boost cardiovascular endurance, reduce hypertension, enhance pulmonary function, and more. However, these results are still fairly preliminary, so take these findings with a grain of salt!

The Benefits of Yoga for Men

Besides the physical and mental benefits listed above that are great outcomes for anyone who engages in yoga, there are also many benefits that men often specifically appreciate about practicing yoga.

For example, yoga can help men:

1. Enhance their athletic performance through improved flexibility, internal awareness, better respiratory capacity, better circulation and motion efficiency, and greater energy.
2. Prevent injury and speed up recovery through the healing of inflamed muscles, tissue, joints, and fascia, as well as the restoring of connective tissue and increased body awareness, leading to more caution and less injury.
3. Boost their sex life, by enhancing desire, sexual satisfaction, performance, confidence, partner synchronization, control, and even better orgasms!
4. Optimize their muscle tone via increased delivery of oxygen to the muscles.
5. Lower their stress level through movement.
6. Increase their mental agility through the sharpening of the mind and improved cognitive function that comes with the meditative exercise of yoga (Ross, 2018).

This list provides some pretty good reasons for curious men to give yoga a try! Don’t get jealous yet, ladies—there are also some benefits of yoga that speak to women in particular.

The Benefits of Yoga for Women

The benefits of yoga that are often specifically appreciated by women include:

1. Helping you to deal with hormonal changes during your cycle and during menopause.
2. Soothing worry and anxiety caused by a health crisis or serious diagnosis.
3. Lessening stress and reducing the severity and frequency of anxiety and depression symptoms.
4. Improving your posture.
5. Improving your appearance through standing taller, feeling more confident, and more effective weight management (Cespedes, 2018).

In addition, although we noted some of the impacts of yoga on PTSD earlier, it’s worth emphasizing that it may be particularly helpful for women who have suffered some kind of trauma.

The Trauma Center at the Justice Resource Institute in Brookline, Massachusetts recruited a group of women who had been diagnosed with PTSD to engage in an experimental yoga treatment. The women attended eight 75-minute Hatha yoga sessions over the course of a few weeks. Those who participated reported significantly reduced PTSD symptoms compared with women in a talk therapy group (Novotney, 2009). This might not represent the average results of yoga for PTSD, but there are at least some cases where it’s as effective as seeing a licensed professional therapist! At that price (free or very cheap), yoga is definitely worth a try.