Your Brain on Yoga

Yoga has been around for thousands of years and is becoming more and more popular as a form of exercise in the West. Many people, however, will say that yoga is much more than exercise or that it can’t be classified as exercise at all. This hour on Focus, Lindsey Moon talks with incoming Professor of Kinesiology at Wayne State University Neha Goethe about study she recently completed at the University of Illinois comparing yoga practice to more traditional exercise. Mare Payne, who was a part of Neha’s study also joins us.

Then during the second half of the show, we’ll hear from Jennifer Allen, a yoga instructor from Champaign. She’ll tell more about the different styles of yoga and why some people strongly oppose the idea that yoga is a form of exercise. She also tells us more about yoga’s history, and Lindsey talks with her about how yoga in the West is different from it’s more traditional forms.

The Urbana Park District is sponsoring free yoga classes in Meadowbrook Park on Saturdays this summer. Find more information about those classes and more about the Exercise Psychology Lab at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where Neha conducted her research below.