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Get Your Beauty Rest

Yoga vacations provide a plethora of benefits, one of which is carving out time in the itinerary for rest and relaxation.  Yoga vacations do the hard work of planning out the week with intentional activities and down time, ensuring proper sleep cycles. Several researchers believe that our brains encode memories while we sleep, keeping the one’s the “mean” something and tossing the ones that don’t.  According to Health.com and a 2018 study, a good night’s sleep is thought to clear out the beta-amyloid, the protein that can clump together and form plaques in the brain. 

Yoga Vacations Offer Brain Food

The American Journal of Medicine published a study in 2018 and found that people with a higher-quality diet experience less shrinkage in their hippocampus than those who ate less mindfully.  Several physicians recommend seeking out foods known to be especially supportive to support neurological functions including walnuts, eggs, seeds, fatty fish, whole grains, berries, green tea, and even dark chocolate!

Move Your Body on Your Next Yoga Vacation

Find physical rhythmic movement on your next yoga vacation.  Not only does it increase blood flow and oxygen to your grey matter in your brain but cardio and strength exercises also release neuronal growth factors that maintain and even enhance your brain function! The American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry published a 2018 study that links greater physical activity along with a healthy, well-balanced diet and BMI to fewer brain plaques and protein tangles. 

Yoga Vacations Encourage Mental Exercises

There’s a lot of benefits when you work your mind and you can do this by simply staying curious and engaged.  Similar to most PTO’s, our muscles work on the notion that “if you don’t use it, you lose it.”  Meaning, if you don’t work your muscles out, they will eventually atrophy.  We often forget that our brain is also a muscle, we just have to work it out a bit differently.  The best way to do this is learn new skills like speaking a new language when you’re in a foreign country, or learning to cook a new cuisine, or learning the tango!  Your brain literally reconfigures itself by creating new neural pathways, which essentially keeps it limber. You don’t even have to become an expert at the new skill, you just have to try!  Embrace the failures. They’re keeping you young!