It’s often suggested that individuals turn to yoga when they’re feeling stressed, but what’s the real connection between yoga, brain health, and mental well-being? Does it actually work, and if so, how? Let’s explore why yoga isn’t just about stretching, but a powerful practice for calming the mind, boosting mood, and supporting long-term brain health.

What is Yoga and How It Supports Brain Health?

You may already think you know what yoga is. It’s just stretching and moving around, right? Yes, while there is the physical component of moving your body in different ways, yoga often also involves breath work and specific postural and movement patterns. Yoga is much more intentional than doing a downward dog and moving on with your day.

Benefits of Yoga On the Mind (Woodyard, 2011)

  • Mood Improvement

Yoga has been shown to elevate different neurotransmitter levels in the brain that are involved with mood enhancement. For example, yoga increases GABA levels in the brain, which is associated with reduced anxiety and improved mood (Kumar & Singh, 2021). Additionally, a review done by Vollbehr et al (2018) supported yoga being an effective intervention to enhance the moods of the patients. 

  • Increased Relaxation

Yoga activates the parasympathetic branch of the nervous system, which is often associated known as the “rest and digest” system. By activating this system, if someone is in a heightened sympathetic state where they are experiencing things like anxiety, and ruminating thoughts, yoga can help shift them into more of a regulated state. Specifically, by activating the parasympathetic nervous system, physiologically your body will calm down. This can lead to a decreased heart rate, more regulated breathing, increased blood flow to vital organs. All of these, as well as other physiological benefits, will signal to your body that you are safe, reprogramming your brain to decrease sensitivity to “threat” in the environment (even things such as traffic, loud noises, etc can be seen as threatening).

*The goal is to never be in a sympathetic state, the goal is just to be able to shift in and out of it accordingly 

Yoga has been shown to improve cognitive function in various different studies. One such study found a significant improvement in attention and processing speed in those who did yoga. Improved stress regulation has been shown to be an underlying factor in cognitive improvements, as well as the brain being able to complete cognitive tasks more effectively while using less neural resources. This is referred to as neurocognitive resource efficiency and it is seen in those who do yoga, resulting in increased connectivity and restructuring of brain networks (Santaella et al., 2019), which is associated with enhanced attention and emotion regulation. The final example of yoga’s benefits for cognitive health involves a study that saw increased volume of the hippocampus in the brains of older adults who did yoga (Voss et al., 2023). This brain area is associated with memory and learning, so it is yet another example of the profound impacts yoga has on the brain.

  • Increased Emotional Regulation

With increased self awareness and self compassion, which often ensues with a committed yoga practice, individuals have been seen to foster increased emotional resilience. In addition to other benefits of yoga, such as pushing individuals to work through limiting beliefs and aiding in stress reduction, reframing unhelpful beliefs and continuing to show up for themselves, individuals are able to increase emotional resilience. A study done by Janjhua et al (2020) found that not only were there emotional regulation improvements in adolescents who did yoga, but also a significant effect on self esteem.

Important Connection with Mental Health

As you’ve seen, there are many benefits yoga has on the mind, with a big one being that it helps regulate mental health. However, this doesn’t just start and end in the brain. The process of emotional regulation and being able to move through different mental health struggles like anxiety and depression involves having the capacity to do so.

Physical Benefits of Yoga for Brain Health (Woodyard, 2011)

  • Improves Flexibility, Range of Motion and Balance

Through different movement patterns and stretching, yoga has been shown to improve flexibility and balance (Luo & Huang, 2023). Additionally, Polsgrove et al. (2016) found that with the increase in flexibility and balance, yoga has the potential to increase athletic performance. Yoga is beneficial for each of these areas by often requiring joints to move in their full range of motion, increasing core strength and by improving one’s awareness of their body position (proprioception). 

  • Improves Mind-Body Connection

Yoga improves body awareness through different ways. One of the biggest ways is by enhancing proprioception, which is the awareness of where your body is in space. Additionally, yoga has been shown to increase interoceptive awareness, which is awareness of your bodily sensations (i.e heartbeat and breathe). Additionally, different areas of the brain, such as the insula and somatosensory cortex are activated during yoga, which are both responsible for processing bodily sensations (Rivest-Gadbois & Boudrias, 2019).

  • Improves Strength 

Yoga has been shown to improve muscular strength by using body weight resistance. There are many different poses such as a chair pose which require you to support your body weight and hold tension. Additionally, isometric contractions are often involved in yoga practices, where muscles are engaged, albeit not moving. An example of one of  these types of movements would be holding a plank. (Bhowmik & Ray, 2024)

  • Pain Relief 

There is lots of support for yoga’s benefits on pain in the body and this has been shown in many different studies. One meta-analysis showed that pain intensity was reduced in the short term and was sustained long term (Anheyer et al., 2022). Another study found that those who did yoga had significant reductions in their persistent low back pain (Wren et al., 2011).

  • Increased Energy 

This is due to multiple factors, including but not limited to the fact that yoga has been shown to improve sleep, as well as releasing endorphins and increasing blood flow. These factors, along with many others, help to explain how energizing yoga can be.

How Taking Care of Your Body Also Takes Care of Your Whole Self

When doing yoga, not only are you improving your physical health, but also your mental health and overall well-being. The more obvious benefits might include increased flexibility, strength and balance, but yoga also has many other benefits. These include improved attention, increased energy, better ability to regulate emotions and improved mood.

Neurofeedback and Yoga: A Powerful Combination for Brain Health

Let’s dig into how yoga relates to neurofeedback, a technique that trains brain waves to a more optimal pattern and activation level for each unique individual. Neurofeedback is a form of biofeedback that uses real-time brainwave monitoring to train your brain to function more efficiently. By training your brain through this process, you can become more regulated to then be able to shift your nervous system into a more calm and centered state. Much like how yoga is beneficial in regards to emotional regulation, cognitive function, mood enhancement and so on, neurofeedback has similar benefits. By implementing neurofeedback, as well as doing yoga, you have the opportunity to set yourself up for some major benefits. Additionally, by getting your brain into a more regulated place, you’ll have more capacity and mental energy to pursue your physical health through yoga, as well as take care of your overall well being.

Final Thoughts

Yoga is highly beneficial if you’re looking for another way to support your mind, body and overall well being. Additionally, it would be worthwhile to consider doing neurofeedback alongside yoga as it could provide additional benefits. By doing a modality like neurofeedback, along with yoga, it could amplify the benefits and provide even greater healing.

References

Bhowmik Bhunia, G., & Ray, U. S. (2024). Improvement in muscular strength, body flexibility and balance by yoɡasana and with reduced detraining effects by yoɡa breathing maneuvers: A non-randomized controlled study. Journal of Ayurveda and integrative medicine, 15(1), 100815. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaim.2023.100815

Gothe, N. P., & McAuley, E. (2015). Yoga and Cognition: A Meta-Analysis of Chronic and Acute Effects. Psychosomatic medicine, 77(7), 784–797. https://doi.org/10.1097/PSY.0000000000000218

Kumar, Narottam; Singh, Udham. Yoga for improving mood and cognitive functions – A brief review. Yoga Mimamsa 53(1):p 39-45, Jan–Jun 2021. | DOI: 10.4103/ym.ym_11_21

Luo, X., & Huang, X. (2023). The effects of a yoga intervention on balance and flexibility in female college students during COVID-19: A randomized controlled trial. PloS one, 18(3), e0282260. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0282260

Rivest-Gadbois, E., & Boudrias, M. H. (2019). What are the known effects of yoga on the brain in relation to motor performances, body awareness and pain? A narrative review. Complementary therapies in medicine, 44, 129–142. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ctim.2019.03.021

Santaella DF, Balardin JB, Afonso RF, Giorjiani GM, Sato JR, Lacerda SS, et al. Greater anteroposterior default mode network functional connectivity in long-term elderly yoga practitioners. Front Aging Neurosci. 2019;10:1–7

Voss, S., Cerna, J., & Gothe, N. P. (2023). Yoga Impacts Cognitive Health: Neurophysiological Changes and Stress Regulation Mechanisms. Exercise and sport sciences reviews, 51(2), 73–81. https://doi.org/10.1249/JES.0000000000000311

Woodyard C. (2011). Exploring the therapeutic effects of yoga and its ability to increase quality of life. International journal of yoga, 4(2), 49–54. https://doi.org/10.4103/0973-6131.85485