Yoga is often spoken about in poetry. Sometimes it is spoken about in promises. The body, however, is stubbornly literal. It responds to what we actually do, repeatedly, over time. This is where physiology becomes a gift for yoga teachers. It helps us speak about benefits with clarity, teach with more precision, and make fewer sweeping claims that slide into fuzzy territory.
Physiology is the study of how living systems function. If anatomy is the architecture of the body, physiology is the electrics, the plumbing, the heating, the day to day operations that keep the whole house alive. In yoga, both matter. You can teach shapes without understanding the systems. But you cannot teach responsibly, long term, without understanding what those shapes ask of real human tissue, real nervous systems, real breathing patterns, real stress responses.
This is exactly why exploring the physiology of yoga matters now, especially as yoga edges closer to mainstream healthcare conversations in the UK, including the idea of social prescribing through the NHS.
In this workshop with guest expert Dr Andrew McGonigle, we explore the physiology of yoga through an evidence based lens, looking at what research can genuinely tell us about yoga, health, and wellbeing, and where we need to be more careful with our language and claims
Why yoga teachers need physiology, not just poses
You do not need to memorise every muscle or locate every organ with surgeon level accuracy. You do need enough knowledge to do three things well.
- First, teach safely. Fear spreads fast in yoga, and misinformation spreads faster.
- Second, teach effectively. When you understand how systems adapt, you can sequence with intelligence and offer options that make sense.
- Third, speak responsibly about health. This is the big one. Students are hungry for wellness answers. Teachers are often tempted to give them. Physiology helps you separate what is likely, what is possible, and what is marketing dressed up as certainty.
A good working aim is this: know enough to avoid harm, reduce confusion, and increase confidence.
The evidence question: does yoga improve health and wellbeing?
Broadly, yes. The evidence is strongest when yoga is understood as a multi factor intervention: movement, breath regulation, attention training, social connection, and often rest. Even if you strip yoga down to “movement practice”, movement itself is one of the most reliable predictors of health across a lifetime. Add breath and nervous system regulation, and the picture gets even more interesting.
Where things go wrong is not the idea that yoga helps. It is the way people describe how it helps.
Yoga can support health and wellbeing. It is not a superhero cape that makes biology optional.
Stress: the strongest health case for yoga
If you had to choose one health area where yoga has a consistent evidence base, stress reduction is hard to beat.
Students arrive dysregulated in different directions. Some are wired and overthinking. Some are exhausted and checked out. Yoga can provide an entry point back toward balance through three main routes.
One: physical movement that shifts mood and energy.
Two: breath practices that influence autonomic regulation, meaning the balance between sympathetic activation and parasympathetic settling.
Three: attention training, which changes how we relate to thoughts, sensations, and emotion.
When stress is addressed, everything downstream tends to benefit. Sleep improves. Pain sensitivity can change. Coping improves. Behaviour shifts. “Wellbeing” becomes less vague because you can trace the ripple effects through actual physiology.
Anatomy and physiology make your language cleaner
One of the most useful outcomes of physiology study is not that you know more. It is that you speak better.
You stop saying “this will” and you start saying “this may”.
You stop promising cures and you start teaching experiments.
You stop giving a single solution and you start offering options.
That is not cautious teaching. That is accurate teaching.
It is also more trustworthy.
Common misunderstandings in yoga health claims
Some claims are so common they have become yoga folklore. A physiology lens helps you handle them without becoming cynical.
“Twists detox the liver”
Your body detoxifies constantly. If it did not, you would be seriously unwell. Yoga can support general health behaviours that help your detoxification systems work well: movement, breathing, stress reduction, sleep. But the idea that a twist mechanically “squeezes toxins out” is not a clear physiological claim, and it can mislead people into thinking a posture compensates for everything else.
“Yoga boosts your immune system”
Yoga may support immune function indirectly by improving sleep, lowering chronic stress, and supporting healthier patterns. But “boost” is a sloppy word. You do not want your immune system boosted beyond optimal. That can feel like constant inflammation, allergies, and fatigue. The clearer claim is that yoga may help the immune system function more optimally, not supernaturally.
“Specific poses fix specific organs”
The evidence for precise posture to organ outcomes is often thin. Bodies are complex. Context matters. Individual history matters. A pose that helps one person’s back can irritate another person’s back. The safest, most accurate language is experiential: “many people find this helps”, “notice what happens”, “this may support”.
“Placebo proves the claim”
Placebo is real and powerful. It is not a licence to market certainty. If belief alone justified claims, any product could promise anything. Physiology keeps yoga grounded in integrity.
Honouring yoga’s mystery without abandoning science
Science is not the enemy of yoga. It is one of many lenses. Yoga contains experiences that are hard to measure: meaning, connection, insight, devotion, deep inner shifts. Those can remain true without needing laboratory validation.
At the same time, when you make health claims publicly, you step into an ethical arena. People make decisions based on what you say. They may choose yoga instead of medical support, or believe yoga protects them in ways it cannot.
The mature stance is both:
Honour the subtle, lived, subjective experience of yoga.
Also honour what physiology and research can clarify, especially when safety and health are involved.
How physiology improves teaching skill
For yoga teachers, the most practical benefit of physiology knowledge is better decision making in class.
You see bodies more clearly. You understand adaptation and loading, meaning how tissues respond to stress and change over time.
You understand why “more” is not always “better”.
You become more precise with options and progressions.
You can support students with common issues without fear based teaching or exaggerated promises.
This is how yoga teaching becomes more professional without losing heart.
The body systems yoga may influence
A physiology approach looks at yoga through systems rather than slogans. Research is growing across many areas, though it is uneven. Some systems are heavily studied, others far less.
A few examples of areas where research is commonly explored:
- Nervous system regulation and stress
- Cardiovascular markers and general fitness related outcomes, especially when yoga includes sustained movement
- Musculoskeletal function, mobility, strength endurance, and pain related outcomes
- Respiratory function and the effects of breath training
- Reproductive health topics such as dysmenorrhoea management
- Endocrine related stress responses involving adrenal activity and hormonal cascades
Some systems, like the lymphatic system, have historically received much less research attention overall. That does not mean yoga does nothing there. It means the evidence base is thinner, and language needs to reflect that.
How to build your own evidence literacy as a teacher
You do not need to become a researcher. You do need a method.
Use Google Scholar to search topics like “yoga stress systematic review”.
Check the funding and conflicts of interest sections.
Notice whether claims are based on one small study or multiple reviews.
And keep a simple boundary: if you cannot explain what a claim actually means physiologically, do not market it as truth.
The deeper point: physiology makes yoga more respected
When yoga teachers can speak clearly about what is known, what is emerging, and what is still mystery, yoga becomes more credible, not less magical.
- It becomes easier to collaborate with healthcare professionals.
- It becomes easier for students to trust what they are being told.
- It becomes easier for yoga to be taken seriously in public health contexts without being diluted into generic stretching.
That is the real win. Not proving yoga is miraculous. Proving yoga teachers are responsible, educated, and deeply human.
Find out more about Andrew’s work: https://www.doctor-yogi.com/
RELATED: Weaving Science & Anatomy into Your Yoga Class
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