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Do Yoga for Free With a New App Launched as a Part of a Global Health Initiative

Yoga has become one of the most widely practiced physical activities in the world, offering so many health benefits to those who embrace it. And whether you’re new to the practice or you’ve done it for years, there’s a recent development in the yoga world that has us pretty excited.

A Global Initiative Towards Better Health

Classes at a yoga studio can be expensive, and we don’t all have the time fit taking one into our schedule — but now we don’t have to. In collaboration with the Government of India, the World Health Organization (WHO) has launched the mYoga app — a free mobile app with yoga practices designed for just about anyone.

The app was created as a part of the global Traditional Medicine Strategy 2014–2023, which aims to “strengthen the quality, safety, and effectiveness of Traditional and Complementary Medicine.” According to the WHO’s website, “the routine practice of yoga — a 5000-year-old tradition — is a valuable tool for people of all ages to make physical activity an integral part of life and reach the level needed to promote good health.” Now that’s an initiative we can get behind.

Yoga for Everyone

The mYoga app offers practices as short as three minutes and as long as 45 minutes — so even the busiest of us can use it to get active and connect with our bodies. Within the app, you’ll find a collection of both videos and audio files that can be accessed right from your smartphone, many of which are totally suitable for beginners. Videos and audio files are available in French, English, and Hindi, with more languages to come.

Learning modules within the app offer introductions to breath work and movements commonly used in yoga. You can view these videos to get yourself more familiar with yoga before embarking on a physical practice yourself. The videos and audios are then arranged by length, so you can practice for as long — or short — as you want.

Yoga has shown to help relieve pain, reduce anxiety, and even improve sleep. As the WHO describes, it’s a healthy way to build more movement into your days: “Regular physical activity is a well-established protective factor for the prevention and treatment of many noncommunicable diseases and their risk factors, such as hypertension and obesity. Physical activity is associated with improved mental health, prevention and delay of dementia and improved quality of life and well-being.”

The mYoga app is available for both IOS and Android devices, so download it today, roll out your mat, and commit to even a short daily practice. Your mind and body will thank you!

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