Benefits of a Mediocre Yoga Practice 🧘‍♀️

3 Healthy Benefits of Yoga

Yes – it’s cool to be able to tell people you do yoga, but that’s not the primary benefit, per se. 

Yoga is something I picked up the summer after my freshman year of college.

To this day, I do not consider myself “the perfect yogi.” I struggle to even call myself “a yogi” (similar to how I never really call myself a runner, but that’s a story for another time). I don’t have the cleanest chaturanga you’ve ever seen, and I do wobble and bobble out of my warrior 3 pose. But balancing those imperfections in my practice has made me a better “practitioner of yoga” and potentially an even better person for myself and the people around me.

Yoga can be intimidating — lots of terms we don’t know first hand that go way beyond “criss-cross-applesauce,” different class levels and flow styles, and should I go in person or practice from home is always a question on my mind. With a lot of what’s and if’s, yoga can feel impossible to start or something to pass up on entirely, especially if you don’t really know why you’d be doing it in the first place.

So here I am, hoping to encourage you to lean into the skid of the unknown with your yoga practice, and trust that the benefits far outweigh the initial discomfort you might feel trying/retrying something. Here are the 3 reasons I keep coming to the mat:

1. Yoga does wonders for anxiety.

   I’m not even talking about meditation – that’s not an easy thing to do in the first place – but just the act of moving your body alleviates the traffic jam of anxious thoughts in your brain. I’m not the first person to say that yoga is good for the mind, as proven here, here, and here; however, I can speak from first hand experience that the gentle flow, the sweat you get (from a hot or room-temp class), and the act of just putting yourself out there from your living room or in a studio can be incredibly freeing.
   
   I tend to find myself to be so focused on a pose that I am just quite literally not wondering if I overshared at dinner the night before or worrying if I’m even good enough to show up to class that day. Some may call it a distraction, but I call it “productive refocusing” – I’m rewiring my brain to focus on a challenge that’s good for me, that keeps me healthy, and keeps me present.

2. Yoga helps you appreciate your body.

   18-year-old me would never be able to muster up the courage to go anywhere in just a sports bra and leggings, let alone in a heated yoga studio surrounded by other people (the horror!).
   
   I was self-conscious, anxiety-ridden, and comparing myself to how nice others in the room looked vs. myself. I know, this was not a healthy mindset. It’s taken a lot of time to get as comfortable as I am in my body today, wearing a sports bra and leggings to my classes. Not that that’s even what you need to wear, but I’ve found that this uniform I put on for each class is what makes me feel most functional, and now most confident. I don’t cringe at the sight of rolls on my stomach as I bend and stretch into each new pose, I am reframing my thinking into appreciation for how I’m able to move the way I am.
   
   Being proud of your body is a benefit of yoga that might take time, but it’s an excellent way to practice that way of thinking. Be proud of you and your body for showing up on the mat each day you practice, each day you pretend that downward dog is comfortable and you get a bit deeper into a crow pose, and each day your happy baby is a little bit happier.

3. Yoga can build community.

   Whether you’re in studio or on your own with a virtual class, Yoga has a way of building peaceful kinship amongst its students. Before I had my own yoga membership, I was actively flowing alongside Yoga with Adriene in my bedroom – no mat, just an iPhone and a dream of inner peace.
   
   Adriene’s online community is one she’s built for literally anyone and everyone, and there’s nothing like scrolling through her YouTube comments section. You see people sharing vulnerably about their experiences, speaking to how they set an alarm extra early to flow before their kids got up for school, how this video has become the highlight of someone’s day, or how another person is finally on day 10 of one of her many challenges. 
   
   As I moved to in-studio classes, I found that even in the comfortable silence of my classes’ final shavasana, I felt connected to the people around me. Community breaths, closing namastes — there lies a peaceful unity that I wasn’t finding in other spaces in my daily life — even without making any high-effort, super intentional interactions with the other students.

Know that Yoga is not about how perfect you land each pose or how flexible you can be; this moving meditation means more than the physical, with powerful positive benefits that you’ll feel well beyond your mat. I encourage you to give yoga a try if you’re looking to feel better, to be flexible not just in body but in your mindset, and to get yourself out of your comfort zone. Embrace the challenge and find the benefits of yoga — I hope you find inner peace, inner strength, and even some inner joy on your way.

Namaste 🧘