Inflammation isn't always a villain

But when it is, yoga and other mind–body practices can help

I want to partially restore inflammation’s reputation for a second. It’s become the big villain that everyone is trying to destroy, taking turmeric and other anti-inflammatory supplements, specialist diets and other things that I won’t even discuss here. The thing is, inflammation does serve a purpose. It’s just that sometimes it can get out of hand and cause lots and lots of problems in our bodies. (and don’t worry, I’m staying on brand, yoga and other mind–body practices can help, as we’ll see below).

What is inflammation?

Although modern yoga is quite a physical practice, there’s a lot of storytelling within it that explains the names of poses and so on, and some teachers are really adept at using this as part of their classes. One such example is the story behind the warrior sequence, which is a segment comprising a collection of standing poses like lunges and the warrior poses.