Top 10 Reason Why People Start Doing Yoga
Over the last few years, more and more people are discovering the benefits of yoga. According to a survey in the Yoga Journal, the number of people doing yoga increased 50% from 2012 to 2016. About 15% of adults in the US are doing yoga at least once a month.
This increase in popularity is linked with a growing interest in alternative approaches to wellness. Especially in younger adults, there are concerns about the costs and effectiveness of drug treatment for chronic health conditions, especially for musculoskeletal conditions like back pain or sciatica.
This concern is justified. Recent studies show that 30% of deaths from opiate overdoses were in people who first started using narcotics for back pain. Understandably, many adults would rather try some type of movement therapy for their pain than use medications.
A 2016 study set out to identify the most common motivators for yoga practitioners. The authors sent surveys to 110 yoga studios. They received 542 surveys from instructors and practitioners.
Top 10 Reason Why People Start Doing Yoga
First, the authors looked at what originally motivated people to try yoga and found these ten motivations:
- To get exercise
- To improve flexibility
- To get stress relief
- To get into shape
- For physical health problem
- To improve relaxation
- For depression or anxiety relief
- Spiritual reasons
- For weight loss
- For pain relief
Motivations for Continuing Yoga
Interestingly, after people had been practicing yoga for some time, their motivations for continuing shifted. For those people, the motivations were:
- Spiritual reasons
- Stress relief
- Flexibility
- Relaxation
- Building a sense of community
For teachers, the primary motivation for continuing yoga shifted even more, with 44% reporting the spiritual aspects of yoga as their main drive.
Park CL, Riley KE, Bedesin E, Stewart VM. Why practice yoga? Practitioners' motivations for adopting and maintaining yoga practice. Journal of Health Psychology 2016 Jun;21(6):887-96. doi: 10.1177/1359105314541314. Epub 2014 Jul 16. PubMed PMID:25030795.