Vita with Alita

DOWNWARD DOGS AND GENE EXPRESSION: The Surprising Science of Yoga

• Alita Gideon • Episode 7

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Ever wondered if yoga is truly worth the hype? Beyond the trendy Instagram poses and fitness tracker metrics lies a practice with thousands of years of wisdom—and surprisingly robust scientific support.

Yoga isn't just another workout. The word itself comes from Sanskrit meaning "unity," emphasizing harmony between mind, body, and spirit. While physical poses receive the most attention, the true essence of yoga lies in its ability to ground us, connect us with our bodies, and bring awareness to our breath. Those dedicated yogis who seem so calm and centered? They've tapped into something deeper than just physical flexibility.

My own journey with yoga revealed unexpected gifts. Through YouTube sessions with guides like Adriene Mishler, I discovered how yoga taught me to appreciate my body's capabilities, use breath as an anchor during stressful moments, and create space for self-connection. Science strongly supports these subjective benefits—research shows yoga reduces anxiety and depression, improves cognitive function, and positively affects physiological markers like blood pressure. It works by stimulating the vagus nerve and activating your parasympathetic nervous system, essentially switching your body from stress mode to "rest and digest" mode. Fascinatingly, recent studies even show yoga influences gene expression, boosting protective genes while reducing inflammatory ones.

Ready to explore yoga yourself? Remember that benefits accumulate with consistent practice. Your first session will likely involve a wandering mind rather than immediate enlightenment. Start small—even 20 minutes can make a difference. The mat is waiting to teach you what happens when you simply take time to breathe and be present with yourself. What might you discover?

Let's get in touch! You can email any inquiries (or just say hello) at hello@vitawithalita.com or visit vitawithalita.com

I am happy we can share this journey of levelling up, together. See you next week! 

- Alita <3 

Paper Discussed in this episode: Giridharan S. Beyond the Mat: Exploring the Potential Clinical Benefits of Yoga on Epigenetics and Gene Expression: A Narrative Review of the Current Scientific Evidence. Int J Yoga. 2023 May-Aug;16(2):64-71. doi: 10.4103/ijoy.ijoy_141_23. Epub 2023 Nov 21. PMID: 38204768; PMCID: PMC10775846.

Speaker 1:

What's up, welcome back to another episode of Vida with Alita. I'm your host, alita, and today's episode is all about yoga. We've all heard about yoga one way or another, so today we're going to discuss is yoga really worth all the hype? I think I'll give a little background about what yoga really is and maybe my experience with yoga. I'm not a dedicated yogi or anything, but I have tried it out. So I'll talk a little bit about that and then I'm going to dive into what the science has to say about the practice. So I think we've all heard of yoga one way or another.

Speaker 1:

It's gained a lot of popularity lately and I was interested to see okay, are there truly any benefits to the practice? I don't know about you, but if you ever meet somebody, or if you've ever met somebody who is dedicated to the practice, so as we call them yogis, somebody who practices yoga regularly, they always seem to be so like calm and so grounded and so in tune with their body, and I think that's just the consequence of the practice, which I will get into in a little bit. But I think it's a cool thing that there is something out there that allows us to become that way, just so that we're all on the same page. Let's dive into a little bit like what is yoga? So yoga itself is a practice that dates back like thousands of years. It's rooted in ancient Indian philosophy and yoga comes from the Sanskrit word meaning yul, and essentially this word means like unity, and it truly emphasizes the importance of harmony and unity between, like your mind, your body and your spirit. So that kind of goes back to people who practice yoga, how they seem so grounded and so in tune because the practice emphasizes this, like harmony between those three components.

Speaker 1:

It is physical. There are physical aspects to yoga where you are performing like the physical postures, like it requires balance and strength and and things of that sort, but you have to think of it as more of like a spiritual practice. So, yes, the physical components of yoga are important, but I think sometimes when we think about yoga, we're thinking about it as like oh, what are the cool moves and poses and postures that you can do with, like one leg in the air or whatever? But truly the essence of yoga, it's a spiritual practice. It's something to help you feel grounded and reconnect with your soul and be more aware of your body as a whole. I think sometimes, especially when things become trends, like now, yoga is the new thing we kind of lose sight of the deeper meaning of yoga, and this came to mind because I saw that yoga was like one of the activities on my Apple Watch for like being physically active, which is fine. Yoga is a physically active activity, yes, but I wouldn't say that it's like a form of like exercise. It's a form, it's a spiritual, spiritual training where you are training your mind and body to connect as one, and this is done through like the breathing, the meditation and the physical poses that you practice in yoga. Anyway, the point is, yoga is a spiritual thing more than physical. It allows you to connect your mind and your body together and overall, yoga has gained a lot of popularity. It's become a widely accepted practice for overall well-being, and I think this is rightfully so.

Speaker 1:

A lot of the scientific literature had great things to say about yoga, which I will touch upon a bit later in this episode. Knowing all this, and like hearing all about yoga and how yoga is this amazing thing that we can all do, I decided to try it out. So I wanted to see if I would enjoy it, if I would like it if I would, if I would gain any of the benefits that everybody seems to be talking about. So, as I always do I don't know if you notice, it's a trend when I want to try something new I google it, I youtube it, whatever. I went on youtube and there's a youtuber Yoga with Adrienne. Her name's Adrienne and she is phenomenal.

Speaker 1:

I personally love her. I think she's a great guide and she's very calm, she's very encouraging and she reminds you that it's not really about the physicality of yoga and doing like the poses. It's always. She always brings you back to your breath and she always reminds you to be mindful during the practice and to just be aware of how your body's feeling, and she doesn't emphasize like, oh, you have to do this pose, that pose. She teaches you how to go through them, yes, but always brings you back to your breath. So I personally love her.

Speaker 1:

If you want to try out yoga, I think she's a good person to start with. And another thing I like about her channel is she kind of has these like playlists or challenges and they range from like three days to like a whole month. So I've completed some of the challenges the monthly challenges now and she also has a standalone video. So if you just want like it's literally, the video is called something like yoga for good sleep or yoga for a good morning or whatever If you just want a standalone video, she has that option as well. Yeah, so, through her YouTube channel, I've completed a few of the 30 day challenges, or like the eight day challenges or that sort of thing, and the premise behind these challenges is, every single day, she has a video, and the practice could range from like 20 to 45 minutes, depending on the playlist and stuff that you choose, and you show up and you do yoga with her and eventually, by the end of the 30 days, you kind of see the reward of your efforts showing up every day.

Speaker 1:

Yes, these challenges are supposed to be done in 30 days and whatnot, but I'm not going to lie. I didn't do yoga every single day for 30 days. Yoga is not, or I didn't make it a priority when I was taking on these challenges. I just added it to my life, so whenever I did have time, I would do them. With that being said, though, I was dedicated to finishing the challenges, no matter how long it took me. I just made sure to not go more than three days without doing a yoga session, just to keep it consistent and to actually get the benefits of regularly practicing the yoga. So I was able to complete multiple of those challenges. Honestly, I love that yoga.

Speaker 1:

When I was on the mat, it was very helpful to have a guide to remind you to come back to the present moment, to remind you to focus on your breath, and it was also nice to have a guide because I didn't have to think about what I was doing. I would just listen and follow and just be truly present in the practice. A little spoiler alert if you do do one of these challenges one of them that I did on the 30th day she said look, I'm not going to say anything, I'm just going to practice beside you and you're going to lead your own routine. And I was like whoa, am I ready for this? And honestly, that session, where I was coming up with the movement and just feeling my body and sensing like what was the next move I wanted to do was, was honestly magical. That was like a that 20 minutes went by so fast and I never realized how connected I truly was until I was able to practice on my own.

Speaker 1:

I'm not out here saying that I am, like the best yogi and and all these things and like my mind and body are one. I still have a lot of work to do, but I have noticed improvements and I've noticed that, like whenever my mind starts spinning or I'm overthinking something, I have to remind myself just take a breath and just touch, like touch your arm, touch your leg, just remember you're here in the present moment. So my takeaways from joining these challenges and just like the few over the past few months, the days that I have practiced yoga, I've learned to appreciate my body and what it can do. You know, there were some poses that I was so surprised I was able to do, and some that I thought were easy were, like, not easy at all, but I've learned to appreciate my body and what it's able to do for me.

Speaker 1:

This practice has reminded me to just focus on my breath and to use it as a tool. Like I said, if you're anxious, if you're overthinking, always go back to your breath. It reminds you to focus on your breath and to come back to your body. Your body is grounded, your body is your anchor and just using that tool of your breath helps you come back to it and reminds you to stay connected to it. Yoga also taught me that it's not just about the physicality and like being able to do the moves and like it's always about how many calories you burn and exercise and like all those things.

Speaker 1:

I love that part and like all those things. I love that part and I love those things. But sometimes it's just about breathing, meditating, being present with yourself, asking yourself how you're feeling right now, in this moment. And that's what I think the practice. What makes the practice beautiful? It forces you to take time with yourself. It forces you to just sit down and breathe and look inwardly at what you're doing. You don't need to do it every day. I kind of use it now as a tool. If I'm stressed or if I've been sitting for so long and I just want to get my mind off of something, or if I feel like I've lost touch with myself and I'm on autopilot or something. I'll kind of put on yoga with Adri and get on the mat and reconnect. So that's my experience with yoga. So so far yoga seems to be pretty good, at least from my experience. I do support the claim that it could promote overall well-being and I've seen that sort of in my own life Again, not being a super like hardcore yogi where I'm doing it every single day, but using it as a tool in my life whenever I feel like I need to recenter.

Speaker 1:

So now, what does the science have to say about yoga? Because I kind of said yoga is more spiritual it's. You can't think of it as like a form of exercise, although it is physical, but, like your, your heart rate's not going up and stuff. So so what does the science kind of have to say about yoga? Well, some studies have shown that it actually positively affects your well-being. It reduces anxiety and depression and stress, which I don't think is a surprise here. Based on the practice itself, which is like a combination of meditation and breathing techniques, it's actually associated with improved quality of life, physical health, enhanced energy levels and it can reduce fatigue. It has also been shown to improve attention, verbal memory and cognitive function and it also has been shown to improve several physiological indicators such as cholesterol levels and blood pressure and, as you can all imagine, this is all tied in kind of together with like reduced stress and just reduced anxiety. Because you're reducing those things, you're going to have positive effects physiologically in your body.

Speaker 1:

So you might be wondering okay, well, how does yoga actually do all this? You're telling me it has all these benefits, but like what? By what mechanism does this happen? Well, one of them is by promoting vagal stimulation. So what this means is you are promoting the activity of your vagus nerve. So your vagus nerve is actually responsible for regulating things like your heart rate, your breathing, your digestion. It slows down your heart rate, it could also dilate your blood vessels and it has also been shown to influence your mood and your immune system. So, as you can imagine, if you are stimulating this vagus nerve, you are also stimulating all of its downstream effects. On the other hand, yoga is also promoting parasympathetic activation. So you can think of this as your body's like rest and digest response. It's like the calmer response that your body has compared to what you may have heard, or the sympathetic activation which is also known as fight or flight, or like your kind of your stress response. So yoga is able to activate the opposite, the rest and digest, which goes hand in hand with the vagus nerve stimulation. You're promoting, like the rest, de-stress aspect of your body through yoga and because of that, you're reducing the anxiety, reducing the stress, reducing depression, improving your cognitive function, reducing fatigue all of the lovely benefits that I talked about. So that's pretty cool. Yoga is a very nice tool that can be implemented in our lives to gain all these benefits.

Speaker 1:

Now, I don't want to mislead anyone in any way. You have to. You're not going to get all of these benefits from doing yoga once, or from doing yoga for one week, or just from like doing it sporadically here and there once a month To get any sort of response in anything not just yoga, but like to get any sort of response. This is like something that has to be done over time. So you have to always remember that results take time.

Speaker 1:

Don't expect that the first time you get on the mat and you sit there, you're going to suddenly reduce your anxiety and all these things. That first session that you're going to sit on the mat is, honestly, your mind's probably going to wander. You're going to wonder what am I doing is, honestly, your mind's probably going to wander. You're going to wonder what am I doing? It's just not going to be what you expect it to be. So just beware. Things obviously take time and yoga is no different. To truly get all the benefits is something that you have to practice. It is referred to as a practice because it's something that has to be mastered over time. So, yeah, that first time you get on the mat might be a bit difficult, which is why I mentioned I personally enjoyed having a guide such as the Yoga with Adriene videos to remind you to stay present, to remind you to keep your thoughts in the present moment and just to always go back to your breath, because that takes time to do intuitively, anyway, yeah, so just I wanted to put that out there. Yoga is not a quick fix, like you're not going to do one yoga session and suddenly have all of these benefits. It does take time, but you can think of it as like an investment for a greater reward. You are delaying a little bit of that gratification, but it's going to be a greater reward down the line once you've dedicated some time to practice yoga, if that is something you want to do.

Speaker 1:

Despite all of these cool benefits, I did find a review that I wanted to share that I thought was really interesting, because it actually discussed the effects of yoga on gene expression and epigenetics, and the study is called Beyond the Mat Exploring the Potential Clinical Benefits of Yoga on Epigenetic and Gene Expression a Narrative Review of the Current Scientific Evidence. I chose this study because I just think it's a cool concept that something like yoga can actually have an effect on gene expression. So I mentioned the word epigenetics Just for a little bit of context. Epigenetics describes the change in gene expression. So you're not actually you're not changing the actual DNA or the actual genes in your body, you're just altering how it's expressed, like how much of it you are expressing or how little of it you are expressing. So that's what epigenetics is. In this case, you can see how epigenetics can be influenced by things in the environment. In this case, like yoga, the gene is still there, but you're able to change how much of it you express.

Speaker 1:

So in this review they compiled together 12 studies that talked about yoga and its effects on gene expression, and all the studies were randomized control trials. The population between the studies varied, but essentially they varied from it could have been healthy, younger participants to older participants over 65, to participants that were patients or had varying kind of conditions, things like dementia or breast cancer. So it was a variety of people. The thing in common between all of these studies was the intervention used, which was yoga or meditation, which is again part of the yoga practice. But although the intervention was yoga, for all of these studies the timing differed. So the timing of the intervention ranged from like three to six weeks, depending on the study, and some studies had daily yoga practices of like 30 to 45 minutes, whereas others had like a half an hour to one hour practice, about three times a week. So there is some variation in the intervention.

Speaker 1:

But nonetheless, all of these studies had a yoga intervention and they were all looking at gene expression of some genes related to their population of interest. So, despite this variation, though, in each study there was some sort of effect of yoga. So the intervention on the study population, sort of effect of yoga. So the intervention on the study population. So, overall, yoga reduced the expression of anti-inflammatory genes. It boosted the expression of our natural defense genes, our neuroprotective genes, so stuff related to brain health and genes involved in DNA repair. So this is good news. So we can see that yoga across the board had some effects and they seem to be generally positive.

Speaker 1:

You have to keep in mind, though, there are limitations with studies like these, so it's actually hard to generalize what the effects would be in the entire population. Like I mentioned, the subjects that were studied varied and if you saw an increase or decrease in the expression of genes in that population, it doesn't mean it's happening in every single person outside of that population or even within that population. So just keep in mind yes, these benefits are reported, but it is hard to generalize. Yes, these benefits are reported, but it is hard to to generalize, and this is because of the variability in the studies, so there wasn't like a standardized way to measure everything. Just keep that in mind. But nonetheless, it doesn't undermine what these authors found that yoga did have these positive effects and it actually did lead to the change in gene expression in these people.

Speaker 1:

Personally, I think that's really cool, how yoga is able to change the expression of genes. Yoga is not the only thing that can do that. The things that come to mind specifically are like your nutrition and exercise also play a role in epigenetics and they can alter how your genes are expressed. But here I emphasized it in yoga because, as I mentioned, yoga is a spiritual practice. It's something that focuses on breath work and meditation and it's not. It is physical, but not in the same way that exercise is. So it's cool to see that, with an emphasis on, like spirituality and breath work, you're still able to have the change in gene expression.

Speaker 1:

So, overall, I think yoga is a cool tool. It's very beneficial. It's something if you've maybe thought about it or you've heard about it, I think it's worth giving it a shot. Keep in mind, though, that first time you're on the mat is probably not going to be the best session of your life. Your mind's going to wander. So just be patient with yourself. Be kind, take the time to explore the practice, to truly reap all of its benefits, if it's something that you think you want to look into. That's all I have for this week's episode. I appreciate your time. I hope that this inspired you to maybe look into yoga. Give it a shot. It's easy. There are a bunch of videos on YouTube to help you get started, and I think it doesn't have to be an hour long yoga session. Those challenges that I was doing were like 20 minutes, so just just start with that and then see where it goes. Thank you for listening to another episode of Vida with Alita, and I'll see you next week. Bye.

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