The practice of yoga is designed to calm the mind, so it makes sense it would calm the body as well. Research shows that regular yoga sessions can lower your heart rate, blood pressure and production of the stress hormone cortisol. And an increasing amount of studies show that yoga can also boost lung capacity and reduce the obstruction in the airways that contributes to asthma.

A study published in the July 2012 issue of the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine analyzed whether 10 weeks of yoga training could improve the quality of life in 19 women with mild to moderate asthma. The researchers found that compared to women who didn’t do yoga, the yoga group had a 45 percent decrease in asthma-related breathing problems. 

Another study, published in July 2010 in the Ethiopian Journal of Health Sciences, found that 50 minutes of daily yoga for four weeks improved breathing by 10 percent in men and women with asthma. In addition, the yoga group had a significant reduction in the number of asthma attacks and a 67 percent decrease in use of albuterol inhalers.

How does yoga accomplish this? A study published in July 2009 in the BMC Pulmonary Medicine journal set out to answer this question. Researchers divided 57 men and women with mild to moderate asthma into two groups: One group received conventional asthma care only, and one got conventional care plus eight weeks of yoga. 

The yoga group had “steady and progressive improvement in pulmonary function,” the researchers said. They concluded that “adding the mind-body approach of yoga to the predominantly physical approach of conventional care results in measurable improvement in subjective as well as objective outcomes in bronchial asthma.”