“The autonomic nervous system is divided into the sympathetic system, which is often identified with the fight-or-flight response, and the parasympathetic, which is identified with what’s been called the relaxation response. When you do yoga – the deep breathing, the stretching, the movements that release muscle tension, the relaxed focus on being present in your body – you initiate a process that turns the fight or flight system off and the relaxation response on. That has a dramatic effect on the body. The heartbeat slows, respiration decreases, blood pressure decreases. The body seizes this chance to turn on the healing mechanisms.” – Richard Faulds
The practice of yoga has many benefits for the individual’s physical and psychological health. Yoga has diverse effects because it is itself diverse having components of exercise, mindfulness meditation, and spirituality. So, yoga nourishes the body, mind, and spirit. As a result, yoga practice would be expected to produce physical changes. These include the relaxation response and stress relief as suggested in the above quote. These should be obvious in the muscles, tendons and joints, but, less obvious in the nervous system.
The nervous system changes in response to how it is used and how it is stimulated in a process called neuroplasticity. Highly used areas grow in size and connectivity. Mindfulness practices in general are known to produce these kinds of changes in the structure and activity of the brain (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/08/01/this-is-your-brain-on-meditation/). Indeed, yoga practice has been shown to protect the brain from age related degeneration (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/07/17/age-healthily-protect-the-brain-with-yoga/).
In today’s Research News article “Effects of yoga on brain waves and structural activation: A review.”
Desai and colleagues review the literature on the effects of yoga practice on the structure and activity of the nervous system. They found that the published evidence indicates that there is an overall increase in brain wave activity. This increased nervous system activity may explain the decreases in anxiety and increases in focus that are evident after yoga training programs.
They also found that there were reported changes in brain structure. There were reported increases in the gray matter volume overall and also increases in volume of specific areas. There was reported to be increased gray matter in the insula which may explain decreased pain perception with yoga. There was reported to be an increase of hippocampal volume which is associated with spatial ability and memory. In addition, increases in amygdala and frontal cortex activation were evident after a yoga intervention. This was suggested to be associated with improved emotion regulation.
Regardless of the specific structure-function relationships, it’s clear that yoga practice alters the brain, increasing overall activity and increasing the volume of gray matter in areas of the brain that underlie emotion regulation, memory, spatial ability, pain, and attentional mechanisms.
So, practice yoga and change your brain for better physical and psychological health.
“The beauty is that people often come here for the stretch, and leave with a lot more.” – Liza Ciano
CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies