Practicing yoga has been linked to an overall decrease in stress and anxiety, according to a study of adults working full time during the Covid-19 pandemic.
- Beyond the beneficial effects on the body, the practice of yoga is good for cognitive and psychological well-being.
- According to a study, it increases memory capacity and helps develop increased resistance to stress.
- Doing sun salutations, an exercise that consists of a succession of postures related to breathing, is particularly effective according to the authors.
One more proof that yoga, which combines breathing and fluid movement of the body, is a major well-being ally. According to American researchers, its practice has reduced anxiety and improved short-term memory in adults showing symptoms of stress during the Coronavirus pandemic.
Doing yoga for eight weeks relieved participants’ stress
The study, published in the Journal of Behavioral Medicineled participants to follow three yoga sessions via live video, each week, for eight weeks.
A moderate-intensity program had been specially designed and taught them, among other things, how to perform the various sun salutations. It’s a sequence of 10 to 12 postures, performed in quick succession and accompanied by synchronized breathing with each movement, the authors explain.
The Sun Salutation sequence originated from Hatha yoga, which is suitable for beginners, and its variations are also found in Ashtanga yoga and Vinyasa yoga (which emphasizes flowing movements).
According to the authors, this exercise was very beneficial since it significantly reduced the participants’ stress and anxiety.
Yoga: Sun Salutations Increase Mindfulness and Cognition
“Our research is about complex movements – not just riding a bike or walking in a straight line, but movements that require navigating through space in a bit of a different way and being aware of movement, technique and breathing. This is how the Sun Salutation came about, a progression of yoga poses that mimics sunrise and sunset.”, explains Sean Mullen, associate professor in the department of kinesiology and community health at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, in the United States.
“Some publications directly compare yoga to aerobic exercise, and we have long known that aerobic exercise has beneficial effects on the brain.“, he added.
But that’s not all: having to go through multiple active yoga postures, as opposed to static ones, increases attention spans. In addition, learning new sequences improves working memory.
It is she who makes it possible to retain a information during the performance of various cognitive tasks, like the brain benefits of learning a new dance, for example.
