Downward Dog Down Under – Yoga One of the Most Popular Forms of Physical Activity for Aussies

“If you know the difference between an upward and a downward dog and understand that a happy baby and a dead bug are the same thing, chances are you’re one of the estimated 300,000 Australians who regularly stretch their bodies into one of these yoga poses,” says The Sidney Morning Herald in a recent article.

Yoga apparently is competing with Aussie rules football for number of participants, according to a recent study from the Australian Bureau of Statistics study. In the 60 years since the first yoga studio was opened in Sydney, yoga has grown to become Australia’s 13th most popular physical activity. Australian research studies have found that yoga has a positive therapeutic effect on a range of disorders from osteoporosis, chronic lower back pain, and carpal tunnel problems, tp asthma, smoking and drug addiction, deficit/hyperactivity disorder, and binge eating.

The study was based on 2005-2006 numbers, so chances are that the number of Aussi downward dogs has grown substantially since then. An estimated 16 million people in the U.S. practice yoga, according to a Yoga Journal study.