I recently asked my students to write down their three top reasons for doing yoga.  I received 40 responses.  Basically, I had a list of 142 different answers. Some of you could not restrain yourselves to just three reasons!

Without being able to ask for clarification on responses, I tried to put the answers into groups.  For instance, I put friendship and community together under the one category of community.  I put “Improves my posture” together with stretching and flexibility.  Does it really belong there?  Or is posture improvement more related to strength?   My list is more subjective than objective.  But the overall sentiment comes through.  I edited out a couple of outliers and this is what I came up with:

#10.   Peace and serenity.  5/142.  Someone used the word “oasis”.  The overall feeling for this category was a feeling or a period of calm in their day that they could count on.  I got the sense that this calmness sometimes carried over for a longer period of time than just the duration of the yoga class.

#9.  Spiritual practice.  9/142.  Some of you come to class for a connection to something greater than yourself.  Some spiritual seekers are non-denominational.  But, there were some who felt that their yoga practice deepened their particular faith.  I was heartened to know that people can do yoga and it does not interfere with their religious beliefs.

#8.  Community. 11/142.  A lot of you appreciated being in the company of like-minded individuals.

#7.  Energy and breath. 12/142.  Responses that fit into this category included everything from doing pranayama exercises to being able to take deeper and fuller breaths in general to feeling more energized overall.  Stress and anxiety create restrictions in the breath and some of you commented that find relief from that in your yoga practice.

#6.  Strength. 13/142.  Some of you do yoga to get stronger.  No one said this in their answers, but I would guess that, like most yogis, you don’t want to go into the gym and lift weights.  I always say that yoga is a balance of strength and flexibility; although, flexibility ranked much higher in this poll.  Read on!

#5.  Improved health. 15/142.  Creating this category was tricky.  Certainly peace and serenity, energy and breath and strength are all part of improved health.  But what helped me define this category were the responses that said, “yoga helps me with my… arthritis, low back issues, general issues of pain, headaches, …”

#4.  Feel good about self. 16/142.  What differentiated this category from peace and serenity was the self-reflection.  There seemed to be a distinction between being calm and being able to quiet the negative self-talk.

#3.  Stretching and flexibility. 18/142.  This one is self-explanatory.  More of you want stretching, though, rather than strength.

#2.  Mind, body and spirit. 18/142.  This category encompasses some of the others.  (Perhaps I should have made the top 5 reasons for doing yoga!)  But, what caused me to make a separate category was that some people lumped these three reasons were in one answer.  It seemed that you couldn’t separate the physical effects, from the mental, emotional and spiritual effects.  Apparently yoga makes you feel good on all levels.

#1.  Thoughtfulness. 25/142.  Meditation, centering, thoughtfulness, mindfulness, clarity, enlightenment, focus, grounding, being present, improved awareness, inspiration, nourishment, encouragement and feeling alive were all responses that seemed to fit into this category.  Since this was the number one answer, it is not about the poses, is it?

Thanks to all of you who participated in my informal survey.  I look forward to seeing you in class!

Karin