Yoga: what are its benefits? Which one to choose ?

Postures, breathing and meditation give yoga many proven therapeutic virtues: it reduces pain or digestive disorders, boosts immune defences, soothes anxiety. The point with the specialists.

Whether of the hatha , astanga, vinyasa , nidra or bikram type, yoga, a 5,000-year-old Indian spiritual and physical practice that conquered the West, has 7.9 million followers.

The World Health Organization (WHO) even mentions it as a way to improve health in its Global Action Plan on Physical Activity 2018-2030: More active people for a healthier world. What about? Are the virtues of yoga scientifically proven? Which yoga to practice according to your needs? At what frequency ? Does it have any contraindications?

THE SAME HEALTH BENEFITS AS PHYSICAL ACTIVITY

Author of a book on the virtues of yoga , Sophie Pensa immediately warns: “Yoga is not a miracle pill! It is part of a global lifestyle: we work on posture, breathing, meditation, philosophy of life... It is this set that can be considered therapeutic.

It has the same health benefits as physical activity: it fights overweight and obesity, stress, anxiety, depression and other mental disorders, metabolic and circulatory disorders... Yoga promotes our balance of life, our well-being”, preaches the convinced.

"Like sport, the daily practice of yoga generates the secretion of neurotransmitters," says Dr. Jocelyne Borel-Kuhner, pain physician and yoga therapist: "Serotonin, norepinephrine, oxytocin, melatonin, endorphins ... These molecules will reduce the inflammatory process (cytokines) and the secretion of cortisol and thus reduce rheumatic, chronic and inflammatory diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, neurodegenerative diseases such as multiple sclerosis, the sequelae of cerebrovascular accident, fibromyalgia, anxiety, depression...

Yoga can also have a preventive action , by limiting the risk of falls and osteoporosis. And be used as support care for certain pathologies (cancer, Alzheimer's, etc.), especially against pain. » We quickly feel the benefits: psycho-corporal relaxation sets in, the body becomes more flexible and firm, certain pains are gradually reduced... And if we got started?

WHAT TYPE OF YOGA TO ADOPT?

According to a meta-analysis conducted by Dr. Holger Cramer, director of research at the department of internal and integrative medicine at the University of Duisburg-Essen (Germany), the health effects of yoga are felt, regardless of the type convenient. For the benefits to be there, choose your course according to the teacher rather than his name and according to your desires (dynamic, gentle, meditative yoga...)