Does Yoga Make You Smarter? What the Research Shows
Does yoga make you smarter? No study shows it raises IQ. Small trials find modest gains on attention and memory tasks, about a third of a standard deviation.
Dr. Russell T. WarneChief Scientist
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Yoga does not make you smarter in the sense of raising your IQ: no randomized trial has measured a gain in general intelligence from yoga practice. Small trials find modest improvements on specific cognitive tasks, with a pooled effect of about a third of a standard deviation (Hedges' g = 0.33), mostly in attention, processing speed and planning.
Yoga combines physical postures, breathing exercises and, in many styles, a period of meditation. That mix has made it a popular candidate for "brain health" claims. This page covers what the randomized trials show, how much a single class changes test scores, why the evidence is weaker than the headlines suggest, and why people who practise yoga may score well for reasons that have nothing to do with the mat.
What randomized trials of yoga show
The most-cited summary is a meta-analysis by Gothe and McAuley, which pooled 15 randomized controlled trials. Yoga had an overall effect on cognitive test scores of g = 0.33 (95% confidence interval 0.18 to 0.48). By domain, the effects were 0.29 for attention and processing speed, 0.27 for "executive function" (the mental skills used for planning, switching between tasks and holding information in mind) and 0.18 for memory, which narrowly missed statistical significance.
To put these numbers in context, an effect of 0.33 would equal about 5 points if the outcome were an IQ test, because IQ scores have a standard deviation of 15. That conversion is only a sense of scale. The trials used reaction-time tasks, short memory tests and similar measures, which are narrower than a full IQ battery.
Later reviews have reached similar conclusions with similar caveats.
• Older adults: Bhattacharyya and colleagues pooled studies of yoga-related practices in 912 older adults, about a quarter of whom had cognitive impairment. They reported effects of d = 0.38 for memory, 0.40 for executive function and 0.33 for attention and processing speed.
• Healthy adults over 60: Hoy and colleagues found only five unique randomized trials that met their criteria. Four of the six reports described positive effects, and the reviewers judged every study to be at high overall risk of bias.
• The largest single trial: Gothe and colleagues randomized 118 adults with a mean age of 62 to eight weeks of Hatha yoga or a stretching-and-strengthening class, each held three times a week. The yoga group improved more on tests of working memory and task switching, with effects that accounted for 4% to 8% of the variance in scores, and a companion report found faster performance on attention and processing-speed tasks.
The comparison group in that trial is important. Stretching-and-strengthening is a real activity, which rules out some placebo explanations. People still know whether they are doing yoga or stretching, so their expectations may differ. Our article on whether exercise can affect your IQ score covers the wider exercise literature, where trials with strong active controls tend to show smaller benefits.
One yoga class and your test scores
Gothe and McAuley also pooled seven "acute" studies, which test people shortly after a single session. These showed a larger effect (g = 0.56), strongest for memory.
A typical example is a study of 30 female college students who each completed a yoga session, an aerobic exercise session and a baseline testing session, in counterbalanced order. After yoga, they were faster and more accurate on tests of inhibition and working memory than after the aerobic session or rest.
Short-term effects like these are interesting, but they say little about intelligence. A single session can change arousal, mood and stress, and all of these can nudge reaction-time tasks up or down for a short while. A real change in ability would need to last and to show up on tests unlike the practice itself. Thirty participants who know which condition they are in also leave room for expectations to influence results.
Why the evidence is weaker than it sounds
Most yoga trials share the same weaknesses, and they matter for interpreting the effect sizes above.
• Small samples: Many trials enrol a few dozen people. Small studies are more likely to produce inflated effects, and small studies with null results are less likely to be published.
• No blinding: Participants always know whether they are doing yoga. Researchers who score the tests are not always blinded either.
• Weak or passive controls: Many trials compare yoga with a waiting list or usual care. Any structured class, with an instructor and other people, might improve mood and engagement.
• Practice effects: Brunner and colleagues tested 43 people on digit span tasks before and after six yoga sessions and found improvement, but the study had no control group. Digit span is a subtest of standard IQ batteries, and people often score higher simply because they have taken a test before.
• Brain scans without behaviour: Hariprasad and colleagues reported larger hippocampal volume after six months of yoga in seven older adults, with no control group, and the authors noted that this limits the findings. In a pilot trial by Eyre and colleagues, 14 people with mild cognitive impairment who completed yoga and 11 who completed memory training showed changes in brain connectivity that correlated with memory changes.
Sala and Gobet's meta-analyses of chess, music and working memory training are a useful frame here. Across those activities, apparent benefits shrank as study quality improved, especially when the control group did something active. They concluded that "far transfer," improvement on abilities beyond the trained task, rarely occurs. Yoga trials have not yet been tested with designs strong enough to know whether they escape that pattern.
There is also overlap with meditation, which many yoga programs include. Our page on whether meditation increases IQ covers mindfulness trials and the brain imaging research. Much of what applies there applies to yoga too. Similar claims are made for dancing, another popular activity for older adults, with similar results: modest gains on specific tests and no measured change in IQ.
Why yoga practitioners may score well anyway
People who practise yoga are not a random sample of the population. In a nationally representative US survey of 34,525 adults, Cramer and colleagues found that people who had ever practised yoga were more likely to be college educated, to earn more and to report better health than people who had not. Education and family background both relate to IQ scores, so comparisons between practitioners and non-practitioners can show differences that yoga did not cause.
Gard and colleagues offer an example. They compared 16 yoga practitioners, 16 meditators and 15 controls aged 39 to 69 on a short version of Raven's Advanced Progressive Matrices, a well-known test of fluid reasoning. Fluid intelligence was less strongly related to age in the practitioners, which the authors interpreted as slower decline. The study was cross-sectional, so nobody was followed over time, and with 47 participants in total, small differences in who chose to practise could easily produce such a pattern.
Reverse causation is also possible. People whose memory or attention is slipping may find it harder to learn sequences of postures or to keep attending classes. That would make long-term practitioners look sharper even if yoga had no effect.
None of this means yoga is useless. It is a safe form of exercise for most people, and better sleep, lower stress and more physical activity can all help people perform at their best on the day of a test. The evidence supports a narrower claim, that yoga may modestly improve specific cognitive tasks. Some of those tasks, such as the digit span tests used in working memory research, appear on IQ tests, but a change on one task is not a change in general intelligence.
Frequently asked questions
Does yoga increase IQ?
No study has shown that it does. Yoga trials measure specific cognitive tasks such as reaction time and short-term memory, and the pooled improvement is modest.
Is yoga good for the brain?
Small randomized trials suggest modest benefits for attention, processing speed and executive function, especially in older adults. The studies are generally small, unblinded and at high risk of bias, so the size of the benefit is uncertain.
Does a single yoga session improve focus?
Some studies find better scores on attention and working memory tasks shortly after one session. These effects are short-lived and may reflect changes in mood, arousal or expectations.
Is yoga better than other exercise for thinking skills?
The evidence is too thin to say. A few small trials found yoga ahead of a stretching class or a single aerobic session, but long, well-controlled comparisons with aerobic exercise are scarce.
Does yoga grow the brain?
Some imaging studies report changes in the hippocampus and brain networks, but most are tiny or lack a control group. Brain changes on a scan are also not the same as higher test scores.
The takeaway
Yoga is a safe and popular form of exercise, and small trials suggest it can modestly improve attention, processing speed and working memory tasks, especially in older adults. The studies are small and unblinded, single-session effects are temporary, and no trial has shown a gain in general intelligence. People who already practise yoga may score well for reasons that have little to do with the practice itself. If you want to know where your reasoning ability stands, try an online IQ test built by psychometricians.
References
1. Gothe, N. P., & McAuley, E. (2015). Yoga and cognition: A meta-analysis of chronic and acute effects. Psychosomatic Medicine, 77(7), 784-797. [doi.org/10.1097/PSY.0000000000000218](. doi.org
2. Bhattacharyya, K. K., Andel, R., & Small, B. J. (2021). Effects of yoga-related mind-body therapies on cognitive function in older adults: A systematic review with meta-analysis. Archives of Gerontology and Geriatrics, 93, 104319. [doi.org/10.1016/j.archger.2020.104319](. doi.org
3. Hoy, S., Östh, J., Pascoe, M., Kandola, A., & Hallgren, M. (2021). Effects of yoga-based interventions on cognitive function in healthy older adults: A systematic review of randomized controlled trials. Complementary Therapies in Medicine, 58, 102690. [doi.org/10.1016/j.ctim.2021.102690](. doi.org
4. Gothe, N. P., Kramer, A. F., & McAuley, E. (2014). The effects of an 8-week Hatha yoga intervention on executive function in older adults. Journals of Gerontology: Series A, 69(9), 1109-1116. [doi.org/10.1093/gerona/glu095](. doi.org
5. Gothe, N. P., Kramer, A. F., & McAuley, E. (2017). Hatha yoga practice improves attention and processing speed in older adults: Results from an 8-week randomized control trial. Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, 23(1), 35-40. [doi.org/10.1089/acm.2016.0185](. doi.org
6. Gothe, N., Pontifex, M. B., Hillman, C., & McAuley, E. (2013). The acute effects of yoga on executive function. Journal of Physical Activity and Health, 10(4), 488-495. [doi.org/10.1123/jpah.10.4.488](. doi.org
7. Brunner, D., Abramovitch, A., & Etherton, J. (2017). A yoga program for cognitive enhancement. PLOS ONE, 12(8), e0182366. [doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0182366](. doi.org
8. Hariprasad, V. R., Varambally, S., Shivakumar, V., Kalmady, S. V., Venkatasubramanian, G., & Gangadhar, B. N. (2013). Yoga increases the volume of the hippocampus in elderly subjects. Indian Journal of Psychiatry, 55(Suppl 3), S394-S396. [doi.org/10.4103/0019-5545.116309](. doi.org
9. Eyre, H. A., Acevedo, B., Yang, H., Siddarth, P., Van Dyk, K., Ercoli, L., Leaver, A. M., Cyr, N. S., Narr, K., Baune, B. T., Khalsa, D. S., & Lavretsky, H. (2016). Changes in neural connectivity and memory following a yoga intervention for older adults: A pilot study. Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, 52(2), 673-684. [doi.org/10.3233/JAD-150653](. doi.org
10. Sala, G., & Gobet, F. (2017). Does far transfer exist? Negative evidence from chess, music, and working memory training. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 26(6), 515-520. [doi.org/10.1177/0963721417712760](. doi.org
11. Gard, T., Taquet, M., Dixit, R., Hölzel, B. K., de Montjoye, Y.-A., Brach, N., Salat, D. H., Dickerson, B. C., Gray, J. R., & Lazar, S. W. (2014). Fluid intelligence and brain functional organization in aging yoga and meditation practitioners. Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience, 6, 76. [doi.org/10.3389/fnagi.2014.00076](. doi.org
12. Cramer, H., Ward, L., Steel, A., Lauche, R., Dobos, G., & Zhang, Y. (2016). Prevalence, patterns, and predictors of yoga use: Results of a U.S. nationally representative survey. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 50(2), 230-235. [doi.org/10.1016/j.amepre.2015.07.037](. doi.org
Hero image: Cotton Yoga Mats, by Sha89sha, CC0. Via Wikimedia Commons.
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