4 Powerful Brain Health Benefits of Yoga

A regular yoga routine can help you improve memory, focus and even the cognitive decline associated with dementia.

Of course, you care about staying sharp as you age. That's why you're checking all the boxes: eating a healthy anti-inflammatory diet, prioritizing sleep, and staying active. But did you know that some physical activities have added cognitive health benefits?

If you're among the growing group of older adults doing yoga, you're getting an extra brain boost. Research suggests that yoga - including physical postures, breathing exercises, meditation, and guided relaxation - can slow cognitive decline and enhance memory.

Here are four science-backed brain health benefits of getting on your yoga mat.

1. Yoga Combats Stress

Chronic stress or anxiety can damage your brain, stimulating your brain’s fear center (amygdala) at the expense of your brain’s memory center (hippocampus) and command center (prefrontal cortex).

This imbalance and degeneration can lead to increased risk of developing depression, dementia, and other neuropsychiatric disorders. Yoga can increase alpha brain waves, along with serotonin and GABA, which are neurotransmitters that help you relax.

Yoga's ability to relieve stress and anxiety has been well-documented over the years. In a 2023 analysis of the ways yoga impacts brain health, for example, researchers noted that yoga's stress-busting benefits help improve cognitive function in older adults. They gave credit to the breathing and meditation exercises that help seniors learn to calm and focus their minds.

Recommended Reading: The De-Stressing Benefits of Yoga for Older Adults

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2. Yoga Improves Your Focus

Research involving brain scans of yoga practitioners also suggests that yoga has a positive effect on many parts of the brain that help us stay focused, including the hippocampus, amygdala, and prefrontal cortex.

In other words, yoga can mold your brain to make you better at everything from paying attention and being less impulsive to feeling motivated.

3. Yoga Improves Sleep Quality

Sleep is essential to overall brain health, and a lack of sleep can lead to cognitive decline, memory loss and brain conditions such as dementia. Unfortunately, in our older years, it’s harder to sleep well.

But a 2024 analysis of 11 studies showed Hatha yoga - a gentle form of movement tied to breath - had a significant positive effect on sleep. Doing yoga reduced sleep disturbances and increased the duration, efficiency and quality of participants' sleep - all older than 60 with self-reported poor sleep quality.

4. Yoga Keeps Your Memory Sharp

Studies show that people who practice yoga can develop more volume in the part of the brain that plays an important role in memory – the hippocampus.

In particular, researchers have found that Kundalini yoga - a type of yoga that incorporates repetitive movement, breath work, and chanting - enhances long-term memory and prevents brain matter from diminishing. In a 2024 study on women 50 years and older who had self-reported memory issues, Kundalini yoga was more effective at maintaining memory than conventional memory exercises.

Which Yoga Style is Best for Brain Health?

Studies demonstrating yoga’s positive effect on brain health incorporate various aspects of yoga, but older adults should prioritize safety. Classes described as “gentle” or “restorative” will focus more on relaxation and slow movement. Yoga therapy, which tailors yoga to each practitioner is a good option, too, especially if you are feeling anxious, depressed, or have a physical limitation.

Recommended Reading: Yoga for Seniors: Which Type Is Best for You?

New to yoga? Here is a quick two-minute breath-focused restorative practice to get you started.

See our sources:
Yoga impacts cognitive health: Exercise and Sports Sciences Review
Yoga and memory: Translational Psychiatry
Yoga and sleep: The National Institutes of Health
Yoga and stress: Current Opinions in Psychiatry
Yoga’s physical and mental health benefits: National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health

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