yoga students wearing masks in a yoga classWhy is yoga so popular?

Anyone who’s been in a yoga class or yoga teacher training lately – as we come out of Covid – will note that classes seem to be more fuller than ever. So the question that I get asked as a yoga teacher occasionally is :Why is yoga so popular and why is it always growing? In this blog, we will try to explain why.

Health Benefits

I got to say at the top of the list are yoga health benefits. Yoga has many benefits physically and mentally.  This includes improved flexibility, strength, balance, coupled with help to reduce stress and  improves concentration.

a yoga class outside in Vancouver, BCIts Almost Free

It – as anybody who was practicing during Covid, when all the yoga studios were closed – can be done for free by simply watching YouTube videos, which there are millions of free yoga classes on.

Anyone Can Do It

It is accessible to all ages, fitness levels, body types, disabilities, and conditions.

You can do yoga anywhere and even if you just do it for a few minutes day. Yoga will always be a benefit and will always give you two times what you put into it.

You Are Your Own God

Yoga is rooted in ancient Indian philosophy and that derives from Hinduism, which believes that the Divine/God is within all of us. So god is not an external thing, as Christianity and Catholicism focus on.

I think that many people gravitate to yoga thus inevitably as it focuses on how they are their own unique divine beings. And that they inevitably are in control of their own life journey and destiny, with a spiritual aspect mixed in.

front desk as a yoga studio with masks on for CovidSpiritual

We live in a world of social media with limited attention spans. Where everybody is in conflict and where people judge each other more than they listen or have empathy for each other. I think yoga allows people to very quickly get in touch with their spiritual self/their real self.  And that helps them to navigate and even to pull away/separate  themselves from the external world. Which is the world of Illusion; what  yoga refers to in yoga as the world of Maya.

Over 30 million people in North America now practice yoga on a regular basis. This will continue to increase more and more, as more human time is freed up due to technology. And this will allow people to explore more of who they are and what their meaning is in this consciousness. Yoga is the tool to do that.