Are you thinking about a yoga workout? No wonder, considering its benefits and popularity! Yoga works on two levels: mental and physical. Yoga is a mind and body practice combining various styles, body posture, breathing technique, meditation, and relaxation. The powerful mind-body-spirit transformation that yoga brings helps us counteract stress, fatigue, and poor self-image. Take a look below for 30 fun and awesome facts about yoga.

1. The South Asian art of yoga has spread worldwide.

2. Today yoga is a popular form of exercise and meditation.

3. The word “yoga” was first mentioned in the Rig Veda, one of the oldest texts in the world.

4. The word yoga originated from the Sanskrit word “Yuj”, meaning “to join” or “to yoke” or “to unite”. According to yogic scriptures, the yoga training leads to the union of individual and universal consciousness.

5. Yoga can cure your mind, body, and soul. It can also improve a lot of health issues.

6. Yoga is like a double-edged sword, so if you don’t practice correctly, you could injure yourself. Therefore a good teacher is essential!

7. Other than decreasing stress, yoga helps lower blood pressure, reduce blood cholesterol, and blood glucose levels. A helpful lifestyle intervention, wouldn’t you say!

8. There is no written evidence about the yoga inventor.

9. Yogis, male yoga practitioners, and yoginis, female yoga practitioners both practiced and taught yoga long before any written account of yoga came into existence.

10. Yogis passed the discipline down to their students, over the next five millennia, and many yoga schools were developed as the practice extended its global grasp and popularity.

11. The 2,000-year-old guidebook “Yoga Sutra”, on how to master the mind, control the emotions, and grow spiritually was written by the Indian sage Patanjali. It’s the earliest written record of yoga and one of the oldest existing texts which provide the framework for all modern yoga.

12. Yoga postures and poses weren’t a key part of the original yoga traditions in India. Fitness was not the main goal. Practitioners and yogic tradition followers concentrated on other practices, such as increasing spiritual energy using breathing methods and mental focus.

13. The original yoga symbol was the swastika, originated from the word “Svastik”, meaning “that which is associated with well-being.”

14. At the end of the 19th century, yoga began to gain popularity in the West.

15. In the 1920s and 1930s there was an immense interest in postural yoga, first in India and later in the West.

16. Yoga often uses the imagery of a tree with roots, a trunk, branches, blossoms, and fruits to transfer its spiritual message and guide sessions. Each “branch” signifies a different focus and characteristics set.

17. There are six yoga branches: hatha yoga, raja yoga, karma yoga, bhakti yoga, jnana yoga, and tantra yoga.

18. The physical and mental branch intended to prime the body and mind is the hatha yoga.

19. Raja yoga includes meditation and strict devotion to a series of disciplinary steps known as the “eight limbs” of yoga.

20. Karma yoga is a pathway of service that aims to produce a future free from negativity and selfishness.

21. Bhakti yoga aims to create the path of devotion, a positive way to channel emotions and nurture acceptance and tolerance.

22. Jnana yoga is all about wisdom, the pathway of the scholar, and increasing the intellect through study.

23. Tantra yoga is the path of ritual, ceremony, or consummation of a relationship.

24. Yoga supports the fact that chakras are centre points of energy, thoughts, feelings, and the physical body.

25. Yogic teachers believe that chakras define how people experience reality through emotional feedbacks, needs or dislikes, levels of self-confidence or fear, and even physical symptoms and effects.

26. The word “chakra” means “spinning wheel”.

27. When the energy has been blocked in a chakra, it is thought it triggers physical, mental, or emotional imbalances that manifest in the following symptoms: anxiety, lethargy, or poor digestion.

28. The many physical positions in hatha yoga are known as asanas. People practising yoga use asanas to release their energy and stimulate an imbalanced chakra.

29. Asanas also help you increase your flexibility, muscle control, and strength, helping your entire physical condition. A few asanas and your sex life will be blooming!

30. Asanas are originally practiced to empower the yogi to sit in the famous yoga cross-legged position and meditate for hours without feeling his or her body stiffen or hurt.