You may already know that yoga therapy is a safe way of working with the natural capacity of your body and mind to optimize well-being. But how can this one practice improve someone’s entire system?

Yoga itself offers tools that touch on the whole spectrum of human experience. This means yoga therapy can in turn offer support for a range of concerns, including

• pain from various sources;
• major illnesses, including cancer and its aftermath; and
• neurological issues.

The practices can also effectively support

• mental health,
• healthy aging, and
• death and dying.

Yoga therapy can be helpful for people who are dealing with stress (all of us!), too, and for those who simply want to increase their ability to cope with modern life.

How can yoga therapy help in all these ways?

Yoga involves physical postures, breath regulation, and focused awareness, all underpinned by a philosophy that includes ethical precepts and practices. These elements create a number of physiological results that regulate the nervous system and affect the way the brain processes information.

Yoga therapy uses methods that work via both the mind and the body, known in research as top-down and bottom-up regulation. Put simply, top-down regulation uses cognitive tools like meditation and ethical inquiry to affect the state of the body, whereas bottom-up regulation uses the body itself, through movement and breathing techniques, to change the state of the nervous system and to affect thoughts and emotions.

In “We Know Yoga Works, but Why? Mechanisms Behind the Practices’ Effects,” IAYT-certified yoga therapists Laura Schmalzl, PhD, C-IAYT, and Marlysa Sullivan, DPT, C-IAYT, explore how yoga produces these results. Read on for excerpts from their article, published in Yoga Therapy Today magazine (Spring 2022),* and gain insight into contemporary understanding of this ancient pathway to well-being.

Physical effects

Regular yoga practice improves balance, flexibility, strength, and mobility.

As yoga therapists well know, movement in yoga can range from powerful overt motion, to gentle subtle motion, and even to purely internal or imagined motion. Yoga movement is often performed in a slow and controlled manner that requires balance, coordination, and constant tracking of the body’s position in space. In addition to promoting physical health (e.g., musculoskeletal, cardiovascular, and metabolic health), this type of movement also helps to fine-tune interoceptive and proprioceptive awareness and provides a context for training attention.

Mental, emotional, and energetic effects

Yoga therapy encourages resilience in the body as well as the mind and the spirit. One mechanism researchers have uncovered is yoga’s capacity to affect the nervous system by improving our ability to self-regulate.

A view shared by many yoga traditions, and supported by Western science on respiratory physiology, is that emotional states are expressed in breathing patterns, and subsequently that voluntary changes of the breathing patterns can alter emotional states and influence well-being.

As Schmalzl and Sullivan explain, “Regulation of attention is a fundamental aspect of yoga.” Additionally, “emotion and mood regulation can…be affected by many aspects of yoga—including movement and posture practice, breath regulation, meditation, as well as lifestyle and ethical principles.”

Spiritual effects

Although a spiritual practice, yoga is not inherently religious. Instead, regular practice can facilitate a deeper connection to the aspects of life that bring an individual meaning and purpose—which could include religion.

Spirituality has been…linked to many positive health outcomes including reduced mortality; morbidity; and experiences of pain, anxiety, and depression; and improved quality of life, coping, and adjustment to chronic pain or illness. The development and cultivation of meaning and purpose in particular has been linked to decreased inflammatory responses, mortality, pain, and use of pain medication and improved well-being and immune processes. Spiritual well-being has also been proposed as an important mechanism through which yoga affects stress reduction.

System-wide effects

The yoga model of health is unique because it addresses every aspect of life rather than considering each body part or system separately. When supported by a well-trained professional, yoga therapy is also gentle and infinitely customizable.

Finally, yoga therapy is not a treatment done to a patient—yoga therapists instead help clients to empower themselves and tap into their own innate healing capabilities. Learn more about the professionals who provide yoga therapy services, and check out some of the research into yoga’s therapeutic effects.

*A subscription to Yoga Therapy Today is a benefit of IAYT membership. Learn more under Membership on iayt.org.