The previous two studies showed what happens over years—shrinking amygdalas, thickening prefrontal cortexes. This one shows what happens in ninety minutes. A 2020 study took 25 healthy adults, ages 24 to 52, and divided them into two groups. One completed the Ashtanga yoga primary series. The other performed an assigned series of physical exercises. Both groups underwent PET/MR brain scans before and immediately after. The finding: the yoga group showed altered glucose metabolism—the brain’s energy consumption—in seven distinct regions. The exercise group didn’t. 🧠 The Seven Regions The areas that changed tell a story: Hippocampus and parahippocampus — memory formation and spatial navigation. Where we encode experience. Striatum — reward processing and habit formation. Where repetition becomes pattern. Amygdala — fear and emotional processing. The…

l Last week we looked at research showing that sustained practice reduces the brain’s fear center. Today, a different direction: what practice builds. A 2017 study compared brain images of 21 female yogis aged 60 and older to a control group. The finding: yogis had thicker left prefrontal cortexes—the region that typically thins over time, leading to impaired memory and attention. The women in the study had practiced for an average of eight years. The researchers concluded that the longer you practice yoga, the more you protect your brain. 🧠 The Architecture of Attention The prefrontal cortex governs executive function—working memory, attention, decision-making, the ability to hold something in mind while doing something else. It’s what allows us to stay present rather than scattered. It’s…

The stiffness you feel during a winter workout isn’t just inconvenient—it’s your body’s intelligent response to cold, redirecting blood toward vital organs to keep you alive. But as sports medicine specialists explain, this survival mechanism comes with trade-offs that yoga practitioners should understand. ❄️ The Physiology of Cold When exposed to cold temperatures, the body initiates a cascade of protective responses: blood vessels in your extremities narrow to redirect blood toward your core, causing muscles and joints to stiffen. Shivering generates heat through involuntary muscle contractions. Blood pressure elevates as the heart works harder to circulate blood through narrowed vessels. And balance becomes impaired as stiff muscles lead to unsteady ankles and knees. Dr. Adam Tenforde of Harvard Medical School explains that rigid muscles “aren’t…

Your shoulders are speaking. But are you listening to the right conversation? Yoga Journal recently published “4 Unexpected Causes of Shoulder Pain in Yoga” and it landed in my inbox like a teaching I needed to hear. The article’s central revelation isn’t about the shoulder at all—it’s about how we habitually ignore the interconnected nature of our body, seeking quick fixes when the answer lies elsewhere entirely. The piece challenges us to look upstream. That nagging pinch when your arms lift overhead? It might have nothing to do with your rotator cuff. Instead, two culprits often hide in plain sight: your breathing patterns and your thoracic spine. The Breath Connection Here’s the uncomfortable truth many vinyasa practitioners discover the hard way: when we breathe primarily…