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Yoga might look like just another workout, but this ancient practice is as much a mental exercise as it is a physical one. With a range of diverse benefits spanning across body and mind – and well beyond your time spent on the mat – yoga can offer music creators an opportunity to recharge, refocus and maintain balance amidst the pressures and demands of their work.

“Yoga gives you a chance to really wake up,” says Majken Tranby, owner of Moodra Yoga in Vermont. “You’re asked to be present and mindful. You’re right here, right now – not distracted by your phone, or worried about the past or future. You can capture being fully present.”

Over the past 10 years, Tranby has witnessed firsthand how yoga can improve her clients’ baseline mental and emotional states as a result of quieting their minds and allowing intention and creativity to manifest.

For creative types, Tranby recommends Ashtanga – which, conveniently, is the most popular form of yoga in the Western world and the one you’re most likely to find yourself practicing if you stumble through the doors of your nearest yoga studio. Ashtanga involves moving through a series of poses, all while in sync with intentional breathing techniques. The result is a sort of dynamic meditation with mind and body moving in harmony. 

With regular practice, the holistic benefits of yoga can be especially handy to music creators, providing not only the spark to set your productivity into motion but also the mental clarity, creativity and perspective to create at a high level. 

Here are a few more of the benefits that can result from introducing yoga into your routine.

Yoga can increase creativity

While traditional forms of exercise like running or resistance training can help get you fired up to tackle a task, yoga’s unique combination of mind and body engagement can actually help make you more creative. A recent study published in the journal Acta Psychologica found that just 20 minutes of Hatha yoga (the category of yoga under which Ashtanga yoga falls) led to an improvement in divergent thinking amongst participants. 

Yoga is a proven stress reliever

Yoga’s association with stress relief has, admittedly, at this point become somewhat of a cliche. But as with most cliches, there’s truth behind it, and yoga’s brain-balancing benefits don’t just stop at stress. A 2018 study published in the International Journal of Preventative Medicine found that yoga can play an effective role in reducing stress, anxiety and even depression. In fact, the authors of that study went so far as to conclude that yoga “can be used as complementary medicine” in treating these conditions.

Yoga is a full-body workout

With so many mental benefits, it’s almost easy to overlook the ways that yoga can help strengthen and maintain your body – and there are many. Among the physical benefits of yoga, The American Osteopathic Association (AOA) lists increased flexibility, protection from injury, increased muscle strength and tone and improved respiration, energy and vitality. Worth noting, the AOA also mentions that yoga can help with circulatory health and maintaining a balanced metabolism – both of which can lower the risk of serious conditions like diabetes, obesity and heart disease.

Yoga is a mood booster

If you’ve ever walked out of a yoga class in an uplifted state, it’s not your imagination. Research published in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine reported that yoga can stimulate a significant increase in the brain’s production of gamma-aminobutyric acid (commonly known as GABA), a neurotransmitter responsible for regulating mood. Interestingly, the study found that while participants who were new to yoga exhibited a 13% increase in GABA over the 12-week trial, more experienced practitioners displayed a boost of up to 27%, suggesting that this mood-enhancing benefit of yoga might increase over time.

Yoga helps you operate with intention

Mindfulness – essentially, being fully present in the moment and focused on the task immediately at hand – is pivotal to any yoga practice. As Tranby puts it, “How can you think about anything else when you’re trying to stand on your head?” It also happens to be crucial to the creative process and unlocking the kind of attention to detail that great art demands. By rolling out your mat and checking in with yourself on a regular basis, yoga can help train your brain to tackle challenges head-on with no less than your full and undivided attention. 

Yoga lets you focus on you

True and authentic creativity comes from within. And while influences are a part of every creator’s development and journey, only you can create the work that makes you unique. Of course, in the age of social media, it is increasingly difficult not to pay attention to what others are doing. But yoga can actually be useful here, too. “You don’t compare, you don’t contrast, and you don’t compete,” Tranby says. “It doesn’t matter what other people are doing. All that matters is what you are doing.” By practicing regularly, yoga can serve as a constant reminder to focus on your own personal growth, and even help you pick up on the nuanced changes that could be your next inspiration. “If you’re open to what can happen, it’s different every time, because you are different every time,” Tranby says.