Yoga’s identity crisis: The biggest myth about yoga that millions still believe

Yoga has a perception problem.

Not with the people who practice it.

They tend to know exactly what it does to them.

The problem is with everyone else, the casual observers who see others practicing it.

They label it as soft wellness.

Nice, gentle, a little bit spiritual.

But that framing sits uncomfortably alongside what the science is actually showing.

A 2024 systematic review and network meta-analysis published in the journal Sports, which examined 44 randomised controlled trials, found that yoga produced the greatest cortisol reduction.

It works, the researchers concluded, by modulating the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, the body's core stress-response system.

A separate 2024 meta-analysis published in Depression and Anxiety, out of University Hospital Tübingen, confirmed that yoga significantly outperforms inactive controls in reducing depressive symptoms.

They're peer-reviewed trials, in respected journals, arriving at the same destination from different directions.Yoga has become strangely familiar and strangely misunderstood at the same time.

That tension sits at the heart of yoga's modern identity crisis.

On International Yoga Day, we spoke to experts and practitioners to understand what yoga actually means and why reducing it to a simple wellness trend misses the point entirely.

What do the instructors saySimran Bhana, a certified yoga instructor from Kaivalyadhama doesn't shy away from the "soft wellness" label, but she uses it carefully.

For her, yoga is a self-care tool that aims to reduce emotions related to stress and anxiety, and helps create an atmosphere of calm and inner peace within.

As a practice, it is gentle and soothing to the system.And that gentleness is actually part of the point.

Bhana describes what happens when you hold a physical asana for 15 to 30 seconds, something that might look, from the outside, like simply standing still.

When you hold each asana for that duration, she explains, the physical posture transforms into meditation.

The body learns to stop, breathe, and accept both negative and positive feelings.

That stillness creates a connection between the mind and body, and through that connection, mental calmness follows.

With that calmness comes mental clarity.She also points to what pranayama and meditation do to the physical body beyond the obvious: enhanced lung capacity, improved cardiovascular health, monitored blood pressure, reduced fatigue.

And crucially, yoga regulates cortisol levels and the nervous system, activating what she calls the "rest and digest mode" of the parasympathetic system, which is why so many practitioners report finally sleeping properly after they start a regular practice.So yes, it's soft in the sense that it doesn't wreck your joints or spike your heart rate to dangerous levels.

But soft doesn't mean shallow.The older argumentNot everyone is comfortable with the wellness framing at all, though.

Dr Abhishek Ghosh, Dean of the K J Somaiya Institute of Dharma Studies at Somaiya Vidyavihar University, makes a case that's worth hearing in full."Yoga is not 'soft wellness' because that, by definition, is very transient and skin-deep," he says. "Rather, yoga is the subjective science of the evolution of consciousness, of which wellness is a very critical part and prerequisite."He goes back to the Bhagavad Gita, specifically to the moment Krishna teaches yoga to Arjuna. "He is not teaching wellness necessarily," Dr Ghosh says, "even though there is enough wisdom for his wellness embedded in the overall teachings." What Krishna is actually teaching, he argues, is threefold: Karma Yoga, the yoga of becoming an instrument of divine will and doing one's activities for the sake of justice and duty; Jnana Yoga, the yoga of acquiring wisdom and putting it into practice in order to gain wisdom and realisation; and Bhakti Yoga, which is to set one's heart in divine love as a means of experiencing divinity.His conclusion is pointed: "On this International Yoga Day, let us focus on the holistic and integrative definition of yoga, which is much broader than physical asanas or simply wellness."Both things can be trueRadhika Iyer Talati, founder of the RAA Foundation, holds a position somewhere in between.

She's willing to call yoga a key element of soft wellness, but only on her terms.

It is a powerful practice that enhances holistic health by integrating multiple dimensions of physical and mental wellbeing, she says.

Yoga encompasses aerobic, anaerobic, and isometric movements, while also improving flexibility, balance, mindfulness, and breath control.

By combining asanas, pranayama, pratyahara and dhyana, meditation, it promotes what she describes as a preventive, sustainable, and well-rounded approach to health.

The ultimate goal of yoga, she's clear, is not just physical fitness but a stress-free, grounded, and healthier way of life.Maybe the most honest answer to the original question is this: yoga is only as soft as you let it be.

The mat is available as a gentle stretch, a stress break, a fifteen-minute pocket of calm in a difficult week.

But the tradition it comes from is asking something far more demanding, a complete reorientation of how you live, think, and relate to other people.

You can take the stretching and leave the philosophy.

Millions do.

But it's worth knowing what you're leaving behind.