Yoga Helps Manage Stress and Trauma Associated with Racism

A recent study by Auburn University shows that, as a result of racism and discrimination, Black people experience higher levels of stress than White people, leading to accelerated aging and premature death. The racial disparities exposed during the coronavirus pandemic have exponentially increased this health burden. Yoga has been shown to help manage high levels of stress and can serve as a complementary treatment for trauma and loss. Now, Black communities are embracing yoga as a way to process stress, trauma, and grief before they manifest as physical or mental illness.

Beverly Grant found yoga in the wake of her son’s fatal stabbing two years ago. Practicing yoga helped her find some peace and balance in the midst of her debilitating loss. Yoga has continued to help her stay grounded through the isolation of the pandemic, the stress of caring for her special-needs daughter, and the death of her mother in April.

The percentage of non-Hispanic Black adults who reported practicing yoga increased nearly 400% between 2002 and 2017, according to the National Health Interview Survey. During that time, the Black Yoga Teachers Alliance was founded to provide scholarships, training, and teaching opportunities for Black instructors, and the Yoga Green Book was created to provide online resources and a nationwide network of Black-owned yoga studios, Black yoga teachers, and trainings run by Black instructors.

The Satya Yoga Cooperative, based in Denver, Colorado, was founded in 2019 to offer yoga classes to diverse communities partly in response to the Black Lives Matter and #MeToo movements. Its founder, Lakshmi Nair, told The New York Times, “When I think about racism, I think about stress and how much stress causes illness in the body.” Her studio offers classes on a “pay what you can” model to make them widely accessible to those who need them, offering a safe space to bond and heal. Nair added, “We believe that yoga is medicine that has the power to heal.”