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Yoga is a popular activity for people of all ages. It has been proven to be effective in reducing stress, improving mental health, and even helping you sleep better.
So, it might come as no surprise that yoga can also improve brain health too. However, how can this ancient practice benefit your mind? Here's everything you need to know about the benefits of yoga on cognitive function:
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Yoga – a mind-body practice
As a mind–body practice, yoga can help increase your focus and attention span. Yoga is also known to improve flexibility and balance, which can help you with balance as you age.
Studies have shown that regular yoga practice can reduce symptoms of depression and anxiety. While there are many types of yoga, all forms involve poses (asanas) that are held for a while. The poses work together to strengthen the muscles while increasing flexibility.
Yoga can help with stress and anxiety
Yoga has been studied for both brain and mental health problems, mostly related to stress and anxiety. Studies have shown that yoga can reduce stress and anxiety in people with mental health problems, including depression, anxiety disorder, and schizophrenia.
So it's no surprise that yoga can help improve cognition. One study found that participants who practiced yoga showed improvements in their ability to process information quickly, visually detect objects or patterns, switch between tasks and maintain focus on an object or task for an extended periods (known as sustained attention).
Another study tested whether there was a difference between the brain activity of people who did yoga every day for three months compared to those who didn't. It found changes in the right parietal lobe after a yoga practice - the region involved with processing sensory information from the body - that were linked to better performance on tests designed to measure attention span, visual perception abilities, and motor skills.
These studies indicate that regular yoga practice can be beneficial if you want better focus or want relief from stress or anxiety.
Yoga can improve quality of life, reduce anxiety and depression
If you are looking for an effective way to improve your brain power, yoga is an excellent choice. The power of yoga can be traced back to thousands of years when people from India first used it in their daily life.
Buddhist monks believed that they could experience enlightenment by practicing yoga and meditation. Nowadays, there are many researchers who believe that the benefits of this ancient practice go beyond personal enlightenment: Yoga can improve or treat a variety of mental health problems, such as anxiety and depression.
Some poses improve concentration; others focus on relaxation
It's important to note that yoga has been shown to reduce anxiety and depression, which can lead to improved cognition and attention span.
In fact, a study from the University of California Los Angeles found that yoga can improve quality of life. It does so by increasing brain power by improving attention, processing speed, working memory (ability to hold multiple bits of information in the mind at once), and information-retention capacity (how much new information you can learn).
Yoga improves attention, processing speed, working memory, and information-retention ability
Results from a recent study show that yoga can improve attention, processing speed, working memory and information-retention ability.
These results are not conclusive, but it's clear that there's something about yoga that helps the brain. Yoga is an all-natural treatment for mental health issues and can be used as an alternative to medication if you're looking for one.
Yoga can help improve cognition
Yoga can help people with mild cognitive impairment slow the progression of their symptoms. A research showed that yoga can improve brain power by increasing oxygen flow, reducing stress, and strengthening heart rate variability (HRV).
The researchers compared the brains of older adults who practiced yoga for two years with those who did not using MRI scans before and after training to measure changes in brain volume over time.
They found that those who practiced yoga had increased grey matter density in areas related to memory processing and reduced levels of amyloid plaques — proteins linked with Alzheimer’s disease. These results suggest that regular practice can be beneficial for both preventing and treating dementia.
Takeaway
A few simple yoga poses can make a big difference to brain health. In fact, researchers have found that even 30 minutes of yoga a day can improve memory and attention span. So there’s no excuse not to try out yoga.
