In June of this year the Center of Disease Control (CDC) in the USA released a report on nationwide yoga practice in 2022.
The report looked at prevalence of practice and investigated changes and trends amongst different genders, age groups, ethnic groups, and reasons for practice. We were really excited when we read researchers Nazik Elgaddal and Julie Weeks from the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) within the CDC found that “The popularity of complementary health approaches has increased in the past 20 years, with the largest increases in the practice of yoga”!
Overall analysis revealed that 16.9 percent of Americans had engaged in yoga practice during the course of the year. Some other highlights included National Health yoga remains more popular among women (23.3%) than men (10.3%). Younger adults (ages 18 to 44) are more likely to practise yoga (21.3%) compared to middle-aged (14.1%) and older adults (8%) and also younger adults are more likely to practise yoga to restore health. This reveals that yoga is being seen as therapeutic by the younger generation, which is amazing news and that we as a yoga therapy community must do more to educate other generations about how yoga can help with the management of health conditions.
There appears to be a direct correlation between the increase in scientific yoga research and yoga practitioners worldwide. This is a chicken egg phenomenon. The more people that practise yoga and express its benefits the more researchers want to study it. The more that studies are published the more people understand the health benefits of yoga and are open to trying it. At Minded we are committed to sharing both and hope that as a community you do the same, namely shout from the rooftops about how transformative yoga is, while sharing salient research with those who may not be aware that yoga is so much more than exercise!
Read the full paper here. Take a look and comment on what is most interesting to you and why and most importantly, let the medical community know about the exponential growth of yoga. Grassroots movements can drive change in health policy!
