Why Consider Doing Yoga Regularly

At Zensational Massage Therapy in Port Orange, I've discussed the benefits of yoga with many of my clients. I'm a huge fan of it because I've spent many hours reading the published research studies on yoga that are in PubMed. I'm a cheerleader for having a yoga practice, and you may be as well after learning about some of the research outcomes.

My Yoga Practice
I started doing yoga regularly during the pandemic. It was a positive that came out of the pandemic lock downs. I had been interested in it for years, but found myself with the time to take it up then, and I kept it up. Over the years that followed, I did it a few times per week and enjoyed it. Then, starting June 1, 2026, I challenged myself to do at least 30 minutes per day of yoga, and I stuck with it. It has become a non-negotiable for me, as I make sure that I do a minimum of 30 minutes per day, every single day. I'm also a big fan and practitioner of meditation, which you can read about here.

Getting Started Tips

Before getting to the research, I'd like to offer a few tips for getting started. These include:

• Start slow and build over time. Seek out beginner yoga videos. Even if you start out doing 10-15 minutes per day (or even a few times per week), and then work your way up.

• There are different types of yoga, so choose accordingly. There is power yoga (a cardio workout that is more challenging), yin yoga (relaxing stretches each held 3-5 minutes, etc.). There's even chair yoga for those who need it. As a beginner, look for classes called beginner or gentle. When you are ready for a challenge, look for power yoga, and when you want relaxing, looking for yin yoga or restorative yoga. If you have been using your muscles a lot, do yin to balance that. Read more about the different types of yoga here.

• There are some great yoga videos you can do from the comfort of your own home. They are convenient and usually free. You just need a yoga mat and a block (you can get from Amazon or Marshall's). On YouTube, search for videos you can do. Some of my favorite instructors on there are Travis Eliot, Lauren Ekstrom, and Yoga with Uliana. If you want to pay a small fee for the year, join Inner Dimension, which is a fantastic app that is filled with great yoga. I love Inner Dimension and use it daily.

• Don't be intimidated by watching instructors or by poses you feel you can't do. You do what you can do. Over time, things will get easier, and you will become more flexible. Yoga is not a competition, and you don't have to look just like the instructor. Just focus on you and doing the poses in correct alignment to get the most out of them. You may never be able to do some of the more difficult poses, and that's okay!

The Research
There are many, and I mean many, benefits of doing yoga regularly. I am a research junkie, as many of you may know, so I spent hours reading published research studies in the PubMed database. I have compiled a list of yoga benefits that I gathered from those studies. I encourage everyone to give yoga a try. There are different kinds and levels, so start on something easy and explore the varieties to see if you can find some that suit you. You can do yoga in person, on YouTube, or live stream (or other ways).

This is a list of benefits from doing yoga regularly, with each one of them coming from a published research study (there’s SO much published research on yoga, by the way). I compiled this list straight from the many published studies that I read:

• Increases blood flow and levels of hemoglobin and red blood cells, which allows for more oxygen to reach the body cells, enhancing their function.

• Thins the blood, which can decrease the risk of heart attack and stroke.

• Lowers resting heart rate, increases endurance, and improves cardiovascular functioning, even if the poses don’t increase the heart rate.

• Increases physical, emotional, and spiritual wellness, and brings about a certain peace.

• Reduces stress, promotes healing, and enhances quality of life.

• Reduces blood pressure. Also, enhances inhibitory mediator gamma-aminobutyric acid and enhances peripheral oxytocin levels. Serotonin and melatonin levels are also increased.

• Reduces pain while improving flexibility and functional mobility in those with chronic pain.

• Reverses memory loss, reduces anxiety, depression, and stress.

• Meets the criteria for moderate-intensity physical activity.

• Helps maintain muscle mass and bone mass while aging.

• Reduces insulin levels (significantly) – even three minutes of yoga every three hours of being sedentary.

• Improves balance, flexibility, lower body strength, and weight loss. Also, significant improvements in physical function and emotional wellbeing.

• Improves psychological health and reduces anxiety.

• Improves cognitive performance (ie, shorter reaction times, increased accuracy)

• Improves body image and satisfaction.

• Beneficial for osteoarthritis management.

• Improves core stability and range of motion.

• Significantly improves OCD symptoms.

• Increase grey matter in the brain (for cognitive function, emotional regulation, and memory

• Regular yoga practice is just as effective as stretching-strengthening exercises in improving functional fitness

• An effective and safe intervention for chronic low back pain

• Regular hatha yoga practice can elicit improvements in the health-related aspects of physical fitness

• Helps improve muscular strength, flexibility, and balance

• Hatha yoga intervention has favorable effects on cardiorespiratory endurance, muscular strength and endurance, and flexibility

• Making Yoga and Meditation an integral part of our lifestyle may hold the key to delay aging or aging gracefully, prevent onset of multifactorial complex lifestyle diseases, promote mental, physical, and reproductive health, and prolong youthful healthy life

• Yoga and meditation boost cellular resilience by lowering stress, inflammation, and oxidative damage and enhancing neuroendocrine regulation