In many ways, yoga is an inherently personal practice – a journey of self-discovery, self-care and self-improvement. It is important not to overlook, however, that each individual is part of a wider community, and that these communities form the society we live in. The impact of yoga across this wider field is something we at The Minded Institute feel could be a hugely positive one, especially in concerns to public health and wellbeing.
Our founder, Heather Mason, acts as Secretariat to the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Yoga in Society, which is focused on designing constructive ways to integrate yoga into schools, healthcare, occupational health, criminal justice and within Parliament. They aim to achieve this both through the provision of free classes and by communicating the benefits of yoga through a biomedical lens.
To help understand the potential of yoga to improve wellbeing across our society, below is a brief overview of the ways in which yoga can benefit people across three key areas; healthcare, schools and the prison system.
Yoga in Healthcare
The NHS is under more pressure than ever before, with the lingering impact of COVID-19 placing an even greater burden on a system that was already dealing with the ongoing issue of non-communicable lifestyle diseases, which affect a large proportion of our population.
Illnesses such as Type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, chronic pain, anxiety and depression create an acute demand on the NHS and the medical professions who work within it, as well as impacting the quality of life for those affected by them. Traditional pharmaceutical and therapeutic interventions are of course vital in addressing these issues, but it is becoming increasingly acknowledged that other evidence-based therapies could help to ease the strain on public health.
As a founding member of the Yoga in Healthcare Alliance, Heather Mason campaigns for the inclusion of yoga into the NHS, for both the benefit of patients and NHS employees (who are affected by many occupational health issues from back pain to PTSD). With a wealth of biomedical clinical research on yoga therapy, and over 450 yoga therapy research publications in peer-reviewed journals, the case for using yoga in a medical setting is growing.
There is evidence to suggest that yoga can be beneficial for heart health, chronic pain and asthma , while also improving flexibility, balance and coordination. There is also a place for yoga in diseases such as Alzheimer’s and dementia, while also having a potential role in relieving common issues such as IBS, insomnia and back pain. Yoga can also support people in the perinatal period and help to ease loneliness – a contributing cause of many physical and mental illnesses.
Yoga in Schools
Children growing up today do so in a world that is very different from that experienced by their parents. While dealing with all the usual worries of childhood, from doing well in exams to managing their shifting social relationships, young people now face the extra pressure of social media and their online lives, with greater access to information than we could have imagined twenty years ago.
According to the Mental Health Foundation, mental health problems affect around one in six children and 75% of this number are not getting the help they need. A phenomenon dubbed eco-anixety is also on the rise in young people, as they begin to grapple with the full extent of the climate crisis and what that means for their future, while loneliness and low self-esteem are becoming exacerbated by the prevalence of social media.
Yoga in a school setting can give children a non-competitive means of exercise that also allows them to learn about their bodies and increase their self-awareness in a non-judgmental and compassionate way. Those who live with mental or physical health conditions (such as developmental disorders, anxiety or chronic illness) can also benefit from the therapeutic aspects of yoga which are so useful in adults.
Yoga for children, provided in a school environment, has been linked to reductions in poor behaviour, less bullying and improvements in academic work. Research has also suggested that yoga can help children cope better with stress and manage adverse life events.
Yoga in the Criminal Justice System
Offering yoga in prisons is one strategy that could help rehabilitate offenders and allow them to cope better with their feelings and surroundings. While questions around justice, punishment and rehabilitation are always complex, as a society we have a duty of care to prisoners, and the fact that influences including childhood abuse, addiction and poverty all contribute to a person’s likelihood of ending up in the prison system is something we have to acknowledge and address.
Research by the UK’s Ministry of Justice found that:
- 24% of prisoners stated that they had been in care at some point during their childhood.
- Many prisoners had experienced abuse (29%) or observed violence in the home (41%) as a child.
- 27% of prisoners have a family member with a drug and/or alcohol problem.
According to The Centre for Mental Health, poor mental health is also exceptionally common in prison. A striking 60% of prisoners have experienced a traumatic brain injury, while 45% have anxiety or depression, and 8% are diagnosed with psychosis. In addition to this, 70% report misusing drugs before incarceration and an analysis of survey data from HM Inspectorate of Prisons by the thinktank Reform found that 15% of inmates reported developing a drug problem in prison.
Experiences of abuse within childhood can have a significant impact on brain development and change the structure of the brain, and seeing violence in the family home can make children more likely to commit violence when they grow up. Having poor mental health can also make it extremely difficult to function well in society, and addiction is theorised to be a driving cause behind a large percentage of crime.
Using yoga in prisons gives offenders the opportunity to find peace and calm in what, statistically speaking, is likely to have been until that point a chaotic and difficult life. Yoga’s potential to help reduce the symptoms of mental health issues, increase hippocampal volume, aid in addiction recovery, and contribute to healing from trauma is all highly relevant to the prison population and could be part of allowing prisoners to move on to a better life.
While we cannot oversimplify the thorny issue of crime in our society, the fact remains that happy, financially comfortable and secure people overwhelmingly do not commit criminal offences. By giving inmates the tools to begin navigating their lives from a place of healing, yoga in prisons could instigate positive steps forward which benefit both the inmates themselves and the society around them.
