In addition to things like meditation and hydration, yoga is often touted as one of those aspirational activities that can be absolutely transformative. That said, there’s a lot of misinformation that still abounds around yoga, like the idea that you need to have a certain level of flexibility or coordination to do it (not true) or that it’s only reserved for a certain body type (definitely not true). Yoga is for every body, and its list of benefits is seemingly never-ending. From improved energy and better moods to more solid sleep, strength gains, stress relief, and more, yoga is a holistic movement and mindfulness practice that can offer true, tangible, and even surprising benefits. 

“One of the most surprising benefits of yoga I see—especially in my work with yoga therapy clients—is an increase in interoception, or the ability to sense what’s happening inside your own body,” says Amy Wheeler, PhD, chair of the Yoga Therapy Department at the Maryland University of Integrative Health. “Over time, this internal awareness helps people catch early signs of burnout, anxiety, or physical imbalance before they become bigger problems. That’s a life skill most of us were never taught.”

And while you may have been misinformed that touching your toes and knowing Sanskrit are mandatory for stepping on the mat, neither are required. “You don’t have to be flexible or spiritual for yoga to work,” Wheeler says. “It’s not about doing fancy poses—it’s about learning how to relate to your body, mind, and breath in a healthier way. Just give it a few sessions, stay curious, and see how your nervous system responds. Chances are, you’ll sleep better, move better, and feel more like yourself.”

Here are the reasons everyone should consider adding yoga to their mind-body self-care routine. 

1. Yoga May Help Manage Symptoms of Anxiety and Depression 

While mental health conditions like depression and anxiety can be serious and may require clinical treatments like psychotherapy and medication, yoga has been shown to be a beneficial form of adjunct therapy. One 2023 meta-analysis (combining data from 152 studies involving over 8,000 participants) determined yoga to be an effective integrative approach to treating depression. The effects were most pronounced when yoga was practiced with a focus on relaxation, for more time (both in duration and frequency), and by participants diagnosed with clinical depression. 

“Yoga reduces anxiety and depressive symptoms, especially when breath and mindfulness are integrated into movement,” Wheeler says. Research has also shown that while cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) remains the first-line treatment for anxiety, yoga may help reduce symptoms of anxiety and can be considered an effective complementary form of anxiety relief. 

“I believe the most surprising benefits are more mental than physical,” says Peloton instructor Denis Morton. “People expect yoga to build physical flexibility and strength, but it also places us in intentional positions of controlled difficulty, allowing us an opportunity to practice serenity under duress. The mental and emotional resilience that can come from regularly engaging with ourselves in an examined way can be surprising and unexpected.” 

2. Yoga Can Help Manage Chronic Pain 

Research has shown that yoga may be helpful in managing chronic lower back pain by helping to strengthen the back muscles while promoting flexibility, and even reducing the fear and anxiety around pain. A 2019 study also found that yoga helped improve aspects of quality of life in those with chronic illness, improving their perception of their situation, which researchers say could influence recovery and choice of medical care. 

Because yoga has also been shown to improve mobility, the ability to move naturally through everyday life with reduced or no strain or pain, it may also help prevent or relieve physical ailments or faulty movement patterns that compromise function or cause stiffness or discomfort. “The most significant physical benefits of a regular yoga practice are improved mobility, balance, and breathing, which have far-reaching impacts on overall health,” Denis says.

While research has shown that yoga is comparable to other forms of exercise in terms of its ability to address chronic pain, the multifaceted practice may offer unique benefits. “Yoga moves every major joint through its full range of motion—something most workouts overlook,” Wheeler says. “That’s crucial for long-term comfort and pain prevention.”

3. Yoga Can Help You Regulate Your Emotions

Not only has research demonstrated the impact a long-term yoga practice can have on the emotional centers of the brain, but it’s also shown that even one-off sessions can boost feel-good chemicals. One 2018 study found that meditation and yoga were associated with changes in the amygdala, the brain region typically involved in stress, anxiety, and emotional processing, and other research has demonstrated the effect yoga has on the prefrontal cortex (PFC) which manages high-level cognitive abilities and can be negatively impacted by stress and other strong emotions. Researchers found that yoga increased activation of the PFC and helped counteract those negative effects.

A small 2007 study also showed that even a single yoga session can help boost levels of gamma-aminobutyric (GABA), a neurotransmitter that plays a role in regulating mood and reducing anxiety. “Yoga sharpens self-awareness and improves emotional regulation,” Wheeler says. “Instead of reacting to stress, you learn how to pause, breathe, and respond with more intention.”

4. Yoga Can Help Calm Your Nervous System

It’s no secret that stress takes a serious toll on your nervous system, which plays a critical role in just about every aspect of your health and wellness, from conscious processes like movement to unconscious actions like breathing. When you’re faced with any threat to your well-being—real or imagined, life-threatening or mundane—that stress activates the “fight-or-flight” response, which leads to a cascade of physiological changes. In the short-term, that activation can help you handle an intense or dangerous situation, but when it goes unmanaged, chronic stress can lead to a variety of health problems. 

“The most significant mental/emotional benefits of a regular yoga practice are largely associated with the parasympathetic response—increased calm, more patience, and improved mood,” Denis says. “Regular practice allows us to live in the space between stimulus and response, allowing us to become less emotionally reactive.”

One study that examined the effects of yoga on the nervous system found that regular yoga practitioners showed a domination of their parasympathetic nervous systems (the “rest and digest” system associated with relaxation and rest) over their sympathetic nervous system, responsible for the fight-or-flight response. Researchers concluded that yoga helps reduce anxiety levels and minimize stress-induced sympathetic hyperactivity.

“A consistent yoga practice teaches your body how to shift more fluidly between action and rest, which supports digestion, immune health, and better sleep,” Wheeler says.

5. Yoga Helps Build Resilience 

Resilience—the ability to adapt to difficult experiences—is an important skill to hone both in fitness and everyday life. While many studies have demonstrated the positive impact all types of physical activity can have on resilience, yoga in particular has been shown to boost psychological resilience, defined as the ability to adapt and cope with  stress, adversity, and life challenges, and enhance psychological well-being, which includes positive emotions, life satisfaction, and overall mental health.

“In the long term, yoga builds resilience—the capacity to return to center when life throws you off balance,” Wheeler says. “That’s huge for mental and emotional well-being.”

6. Yoga May Help Improve Cardiovascular Function

You know that getting your heart pumping on the Peloton Bike, Tread, and Row can help boost your heart health, but did you know yoga can also help improve cardio function too? Research has shown that, in contrast with a sedentary lifestyle, a regular yoga practice can help reduce blood pressure, improve cholesterol, and lower resting heart rate. There are a number of ways yoga can help improve cardiovascular health, including stress reduction through breathwork (Pranayama). 

“Breath is your most accessible tool for energy and focus,” Wheeler says. “Yoga strengthens respiratory function and builds breath awareness, which has ripple effects across every system in the body.”

7. Yoga Can Improve Your Flexibility

Whether you’ve been working on your splits or just trying to get a millimeter closer to touching your toes, yoga can help you reach your flexibility goals. Not only is flexibility crucial for maintaining overall mobility, but it can also help you move with more ease in daily life as you age, maintain healthy joints and posture, and prevent injury, aches, and pains. 

If you’ve ever watched Peloton yoga instructors bend themselves into all forms of pretzel-like poses, then you probably have an idea of just how much yoga can help improve flexibility. According to a 2023 study on female college students, those who practiced yoga for 16 weeks experienced increased flexibility across the lower back, legs, groin, and hips. And another study from the same year on physically active male students found that a 12-week yoga intervention not only improved flexibility on sit-and-reach tests, but also muscular strength and balance. 

8. Yoga Can Help You Build Strength

Speaking of strength: There’s a lot of discourse around whether or not certain exercise modalities, including yoga, are “enough” to build strength. And, like many answers in fitness: it depends. Certain forms of yoga, like power and Vinyasa flows can absolutely count as a form of bodyweight training, which can help boost muscular strength and endurance, especially in people who are untrained or new to exercise. Additionally, if you’re adding props to your yoga practice (hello, yoga classes with weights!), then you may be able to reap extra strength-building benefits by putting a bit more strain on your muscles. 

According to a 2016 randomized controlled trial of healthy but sedentary adults, researchers found that an 8-week Hatha yoga program was just as effective as a strengthening and stretching exercises to improve participants’ functional fitness, measured by markers including strength, balance, flexibility, and mobility.

Yoga typically builds functional strength (the type that helps with everyday movements like pushing, pulling, and squatting). While that’s super useful for daily life, if you’re looking to gain a lot of muscle mass or improve your maximal strength (i.e., increasing the maximum amount you can lift), you’ll want to incorporate some dedicated strength training into your routine.

How to Try Yoga with Peloton

If you’ve never identified as a yogi or even someone who’s remotely yoga-inclined, you might be questioning whether the practice could really fit into your life. “To anyone skeptical about the benefits of yoga, I would simply say, ‘try it,’” Denis says. “Keep an open heart and mind, pay attention to how your mind and body feel before, during, and after—then adjust accordingly. If it resonates, continue and expand your practice.”

Feeling intimidated by yoga or turned off by any preconceived notions you may have about the pace or difficulty might be keeping you off the mat, but the practice really is designed to fit your specific needs, no matter what season or life stage you’re in. “What I love about yoga is that it meets you where you are,” Wheeler says. “Whether you’re dealing with chronic stress, recovering from injury, or just need time to breathe, there’s a practice that fits. It’s one of the only systems that works across the full spectrum—physical, mental, emotional, and even spiritual—helping you live with more clarity, calm, and connection.”

No matter where you are in your yoga journey, Peloton has a wide selection of classes, programs, and collections to elevate your practice. “New yoga practitioners have lots of great options on the Peloton," Denis says. “We have pose breakdowns called Yoga Basics as short as five minutes each to understand the objectives and modifications for individual poses and Flow classes ranging from 10 to 60 minutes long, intensities from beginner to advanced, in a number of different styles.” 

Still not sure where to begin? “Beginner flows are always a great place to start,” Denis says. “Or for a slower practice more focused on flexibility, you might start with Yin Yoga. I’d recommend starting with two to three times per week, increasing duration and frequency slowly over time.”

The Takeaway

No matter what kind of relationship you have with exercise, meditation, or self-care, yoga is for you. Not only is the practice meant to be modified for every body and experience level, but its wide range of evidence-based benefits are too good to pass up. From reducing symptoms of anxiety and depression to enhancing emotional regulation, optimizing cardiovascular health, building resilience, and more, yoga has been shown to boost overall well-being in a variety of measurable ways. 

Above all, Denis stresses the importance of viewing yoga as a practice—not just a series of poses. “Showing up for yourself in a regular practice lends a consistent perspective through which to view ourselves,” he says. “The poses are there as reference points to see how we oscillate physically, mentally, and emotionally over time. The point of a practice is not to judge or compare ourselves against anyone else, or even against who we were yesterday or last week—it’s an opportunity to notice and check in with ourselves. And if we get stronger and more flexible mentally and physically along the way, great!”