How Yoga Changes The Body

Body and mind are complexly interwoven. Our bodies reveal dis-ease in the mind, just as our minds feel better when the body is in good health.

A lifetime of living out of alignment, both physically and mentally, creates postural imbalances in our musculoskeletal system that strain our joints, limit our movement, and cause pain. Chronic stress leads to adrenal fatigue and physical changes in our hearts and minds. The memory of unresolved trauma and emotion works its way into our cells and connective tissues. Each of these physical challenges are addressed by the thousands year old practice of yoga.

Yet yoga addresses our state of mind too. Among the reasons we feel so good after a yoga class is that the movement yoga offers pushes and pulls on the body in such a way that it realigns us physically and mentally. Yoga is unlike other fitness movements in that it goes beyond strength building, flexibility or weight loss. Yoga brings calm and clarity to the mind by healing the body.

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Bone Health and Improved Posture

The practice of yoga begins with awareness of the gross movements of the body and how our skeletal system aligns within each posture. Proprioception is the awareness of how the body is moving through space, and yoga fine tunes this awareness.

The more we develop awareness of our alignment in each yoga pose, the more likely we are to carry this awareness into the rest of our day. Originally a complementary practice to support seated meditation, each of the postures of yoga are structured to support a healthy, long, and neutral spine.

When our bones are properly aligned, muscles and joints function in a balanced, smooth and efficient manner. This prevents injury and releases us from pain. And while good posture is good for the body, it’s also healthy for the mind. Those with good posture report greater vigor, higher self-esteem, better mood, and less fear compared to their hunched over counterparts. Slumped posture is associated with higher recall of negative memories, and less resilience to stress.

Yoga additionally supports postural alignment by protecting bone health. Those who participate regularly in yoga exhibit increased bone density, which prevents and mediates osteoporosis.

Muscular Flexibility and Alignment

Yoga corrects muscular imbalances by asking us to move up and down, side to side, twisting and inverting. Yoga improves flexibility, which supports balanced skeletal alignment for a life less prone to injury and free from pain.

Connective Tissue and Mobility

While flexibility refers to the passive length one group of muscle fibers can achieve, mobility refers to a joint’s ability to move through a full range of motion. Mobility is dependent upon muscular flexibility, but also the health and flexibility of our connective tissue, such as ligaments and tendons.

Our joints need lubrication to successfully bend, roll and move. The old asage, ‘use it or lose it’ is true. When we stop moving, the body stops producing the synovial fluid that lubricates joints and makes movement pain free. Yoga corrects this by inviting movement into our wrists and ankles, elbows and knees, shoulders, hips, and between each vertebra of the spine. Yoga prevents loss of synovial fluid volume as we age, making it an ideal therapy for those with arthritis.

Heart and Lungs

Hormones and the Adrenal System

Diaphragmatic breathing also minimizes the release of cortisol, a stress hormone. A calmer, less active stress response improves blood pressure, reduces risk for heart disease and diabetes, and keeps the immune system healthy.

Cortisol is released by the adrenal glands, which are located at the top of each kidney. Certain yoga poses, such as cobra, stimulate this area to reduce cortisol production, while releasing hormones such as testosterone. Testosterone improves bone density, fat distribution and strength.

Yoga’s influence over our hormones includes improved insulin sensitivity and glucose tolerance, which further reduces risk of diabetes. Yoga helps maintain foundational levels of growth hormone and DHEAS. These two hormones promote healthy aging, and reduce the symptoms of perimenopause in women.

Mind and Balance

Body mapping research has found our emotional states are associated with distinct areas of sensation in the body. Feelings differ from emotions in that they are a conscious response to this unconscious and physical emotional reaction.

Traumatic stress or emotions can become stored or trapped in the body through a dissociative process that splits memories into fragments and stores them within the body, versus the brain.

The longer stress or trauma remains in the body, the more it changes the body. Chronic stress or unresolved emotions lead to changes in the brain. Our heart and lungs, immune system, reproductive organs, and blood sugar levels all respond poorly to ongoing stress.

Yoga helps physically release stress and emotions by compressing and stretching the body. Creating space in the body equates to a felt sense of greater spaciousness in the mind, which is perhaps yoga’s greatest gift.