Yoga is among the most popular forms of exercise in the world, and it has become a global practice over the past couple of decades. Some countries’ popularity for yoga still remains fairly small, but there are those where it is an integral part of daily life. Yoga has become highly popular in recent years, with around 300 million people practicing globally. Do you want to know where yoga is the most popular in the world? Read along with the article to discover the popularity of yoga by country.
Yoga participation in foreign countries
The practice of yoga originated in ancient India in the 5th century B.C.E. and has since spread throughout the world. It initially spread all through Europe and the US around the end of the nineteenth century, when it was introduced by Indian practitioners emigrating to these countries.
Because of this, you will now find meditation and yoga classes worldwide, and the US alone now has over 6,000 studios, combining big and small cities. Alongside, thousands of people like traveling to yoga retreats all over the world for taking their skills to another level and to get qualified as certified yoga teachers. Bali, Ibiza, Thailand, and of course India itself, all constitutes large yoga tourism industries and they are growing bigger year by year.
The popularity of yoga vs. other physical exercises
Yoga is a well-known practice that has become increasingly popular in the entire world. In fact, it has become the second most popular exercise in the U.S., especially among women. So what’s the appeal?
Anyone can do yoga anywhere, and it’s not like running where you need time to build up endurance to run a mile. Yoga is a relatively easy exercise to learn, and there is a wide range of yoga classes to choose from. You can practice Yoga with a group or simply practice on your own. Yoga is the second most searched fitness exercise form in the world today and research shows yoga’s global popularity has increased from 2004 to 2020 as compared to running, dancing, and cycling.
Wrapping Up
Yoga has been in practice for millennia, but it is only in recent decades that it has become popular across the western world. In actual fact, it has grown in popularity so much that in current times, almost every town and city in the United States has a local yoga studio that you can attend for a weekly or even a daily class. The same implies to Europe as well. With more and more people discovering the advantages and convenience of yoga for both mind and body, the number of people practicing it has skyrocketed in the past ten years.