How Often Should You Do Yoga to See Benefits?

This is a frequently asked question – how often should you do yoga to see benefits? Well, before address to this question, let us see what benefits people get from practicing yoga. Yoga is unique from any other forms of exercise: it is a secular spiritual experience that aims to connect the mind, body, and soul through intentional movement and breathing exercises. Anyone can benefit from yoga regardless of their flexibility, body type, background, or fitness experience.

Benefits of doing yoga

1. Yoga improves strength, balance and flexibility
2. Yoga helps lose weight and burn fat
3. Yoga helps relief chronic pain
4. Doing yoga help reduce stress, anxiety and form a calmer mind

How often should you do yoga to build strength?

If your goal for yoga is to increase strength, you should aim for three sessions per week. Make sure to leave enough time between sessions to give your muscles time to recover. Also it is recommended to combine power yoga with those less intense yoga forms, it is better for recovery.

The best styles and frequencies of yoga for building strengh are

• Vinyasa flow or Ashtanga:  2 to 4 times per week
• Yin yoga: 1 to 2 times per week

How often should you do yoga to lose weight?

The most important principal in losing weight through workout is attain fat burning heart rate which is 40% – 50% higher than your normal level. That is to say, if you are aiming for weight loss and physique, you may forget yin yoga and other forms of restorative yoga. Generally speaking, yoga can torch anywhere from 180 to 600 calories per hour on several factors, refer to How Many Calories Does Yoga Burn for detail info.

The best styles and frequencies of yoga for weight loss are

• Vinyasa flow 3 to 6 times per week
• Ashtanga 4 to 5 times of more frequent 60 minute classes per week or 2-3 90 minute classes per week
• Bikram (hot yoga) 3 to 5 times per week * It is ok to do yoga twice a day to achieve calorie burning amount

How often should you do yoga to relief chronic pain? 

Yoga can offer several benefits for people who are experiencing chronic pain, and Yin yoga is excellent for chronic pain among all yoga forms. Similar to meditation, Yin yoga helps relief chronic pain by reducing stress, muscle tension, and anxiety in the body.

The best styles and frequencies of yoga for pain relief are

• 1-3 gentle flow yoga sessions, like Yin yoga per week (30-60 minutes each)

How often should you do yoga to reduce stress, anxiety and calm down?

Meditation helps practicers to focus attention and eliminate the stream of jumbled thoughts that may be crowding your mind and causing stress. This process may result in enhanced physical and emotional well-being.

The best styles and frequencies of yoga for reducing stress and anxiety are

• 10-15 minutes of meditation every night before bed

Final thoughts

How often you practice yoga may determine how quickly you get there but it’s not a simple equation of ‘the more often you practice yoga, the faster you get results’. How often you should do yoga is a question without standard answer, the same way as picking yoga wear for workout, answer to these questions varies from people to people.

Yoga can be done as often as you’d like and as often as your body will allow, always pay attention to your body. Also, in order to achieve results on the journey of yoga, the most important thing is to remain consistent and attentive to your body’s needs.