cbd & yoga: a match made in heaven?

If you’re an avid yogi, you may have noticed a new trend popping up at the yoga studios in your area — CBD. It seems like every day, more and more yoga instructors are finding ways to incorporate CBD products into their practice. But why are so many people now mixing CBD with yoga, and does the pairing even make sense? According to Jolie Parcher — founder and director of Mandala Yoga Center for Healing Arts in Amagansett, NY — CBD and yoga absolutely belong together.

Mandala began offering CBD yoga classes a few years ago after Parcher started experimenting with CBD herself. The CBD made her feel more present and helped her achieve what she says is the primary goal of practicing yoga: listening to your body.

“That’s what yoga ultimately is. It’s really taking care of your body, and especially listening to how it’s doing,” says Parcher. “So, CBD is another tool helping us to listen. It turns on the ability to perceive and be patient when there is discomfort, rather than just wanting to push through it or avoid it.”

People have busy, stressful lives, and that makes it difficult to get into the relaxed state you want to be in when practicing yoga. CBD helps relieve daily stresses and gently coaxes people into a yoga-appropriate headspace when they’re struggling to get there.

Aside from helping get the most out of a yoga class, Parcher says that introducing people to CBD through a more familiar medium like yoga is a powerful means of destigmatizing cannabis. By making sure she’s built strong relationships with her students and by being open to conversations about CBD, people who would otherwise never consider it begin to come around to the healing potential of cannabis.

Pairing CBD and yoga is a safe way to put CBD in its place. It detaches people from the stigma surrounding cannabis, and helps them look at cannabis as a medicine. 

For those yoga students who want to incorporate CBD into their practice, but don’t know where to start, Parcher says the best thing to do is to take it slow. Avoid challenging yoga classes to start, and make sure participants become familiar with how CBD affects their body.

“CBD takes about 20 minutes for it to really begin to affect the body, so you could sit in meditation for 20 minutes and then begin the class. And I would suggest taking gentle, or slower yoga classes, just so you can really use the quality of the CBD oil that helps you to hear yourself more acutely.”

Once you start to learn how CBD and yoga can help you become more in tune with your body, you can begin to bring that knowledge into more active and stressful activities, too. Parcher says she also likes to have a little CBD before going surfing to help her stay focused.

CBD can do more than keep you in the moment, too. Using a CBD topical is also a great way to help soothe sore muscles and speed along post-workout recovery. It’s just a matter of understanding dosage and applying the right product for you.

So, yes, it seems like CBD and yoga are a great combination after all. Not that we had any doubt about that anyway.

Get yoga-enhancing CBD here.