Brain Health, Memory And Dementia Risk: What Mr Iyengar, The Yoga Doctors And The Research Say

Walked into a room and forgotten why? Lost the name of someone you know well? Most of us start to notice this in our fifties and sixties, and the quiet worry that comes with it: is this the start of dementia? The great yoga teachers, the medical doctors who worked with Mr BKS Iyengar, and a growing pile of research all point the same way. A calm, active, learning brain stays sharper for longer. This guide brings together what each of them says about memory, brain health and how to reduce dementia risk. Last updated: 31 October 2026.

Get 2 Free Yoga Classes And 2 Free Ebooks

Brain health, memory and yoga: the short answer

Can yoga help your memory and brain health? Yes. In the trials, older adults who did yoga got better at memory, attention and planning. A 2020 review of 12 studies and 912 older adults found gains in all three. In people who already had mild cognitive impairment (memory slipping more than age alone explains), 12 weeks of Kundalini yoga improved memory and planning, and did better than the “gold standard” memory training for planning and mood. Brain scans of people who do yoga show healthier memory and attention centres. No one can promise anything about dementia. But if you are searching for how to reduce dementia risk, yoga works on many of the risks you can change: inactivity, high blood pressure, blood sugar, low mood, stress, poor sleep and loneliness. Lower your risk, and stay sharper for longer.

One thing to keep in mind as you read: the strongest memory trials tested Kundalini yoga and a short chant called Kirtan Kriya, and others tested “yoga” of many styles. That is good news for yoga and for breath and chant practice in general: different roads to the same place. Iyengar yoga has not yet been tested for memory. In our view, well-taught Iyengar yoga, with its precise attention, balance work and pranayama, is likely to go at least as far. Why the kind of yoga matters.

The bottom line: five key moves for brain health

1. Go to a yoga class at your level, two or three times a week, and keep going. In a review of 41 studies of mind-body practice in people over 60, thinking improved when programmes ran longer than 12 weeks, or 3 to 7 times a week, or 45 to 60 minutes a session. Give it a season, not a fortnight.
2. Add breath work (pranayama). It calms the mind and brings stress, worry and anger down. Stress is hard on memory, and a calm brain is a brain that can learn.
3. Keep learning, and keep your balance. New poses, new instructions and standing on one leg all make the brain work. Balance is a brain skill, and the wobble is the workout.
4. Cut back on what wears the brain down. Long hours of sitting, high blood pressure, sugary and highly processed food, poor sleep and too much time alone. A class gets you moving, calms you, helps you sleep and puts you in a room with people.
5. Start now. New to Flametree, or away 3 months or more? 2 free classes, then 10 at half price, in Darwin or LIVE online.

Iyengar yoga is the style we teach at Flametree. During the 20th century, Mr BKS Iyengar was the major person who codified traditional Indian yoga, through his seminal books and widespread teaching. He also pioneered the use of props, so poses can be adapted to almost any body. His style is sometimes called modern classical yoga. This guide is part of our encyclopaedia of yoga for health conditions, and covers Dr Timothy McCall’s Cognitive Impairment (no. 19) and Alzheimer’s Disease (no. 2).

This guide in short

• Mr BKS Iyengar: tell ordinary forgetfulness apart from dementia; calm the brain, keep the body active. He relearned his own practice after a severe accident in 1979, at about 60.
• Geeta S Iyengar: forward bends, an upright spine and balancing poses for a clear, alert mind. Her approach matters for women, who make up about two thirds of people with Alzheimer’s.
• Dr Timothy McCall: both conditions are on his list; he ties dementia to high blood pressure, which yoga helps.
• Dr Krishna Raman: sit upright so blood reaches the brain and the mind stays awake; practise correctly, never to excess.
• The research: 21 studies listed below, from small chant trials to reviews of more than 4,000 people.
• For men: why men should not leave this to women.
• Take it further: our free ebook Sharper For Longer, and classes in Darwin and online.

“I have been doing it for sixty years and I have not become dull even one day.”

Memory loss, mild cognitive impairment and dementia: what they are

Memory is not stored like a file. The brain rebuilds it each time from pieces, in three steps: taking it in, keeping it, and finding it again. Attention is the gate. Many everyday slips are simply things we never fully noticed in the first place.

• Ordinary forgetfulness: names on the tip of the tongue, lost keys, the room you walked into. Common with age, and often a sign of a busy, distracted mind. “Brain fog” is the everyday word many people use for this, and in the menopause years it is very common.
• Mild cognitive impairment (MCI): memory or thinking slipping more than age alone explains, while daily life still goes on. Dr Sanjay Gupta, in Keep Sharp, puts it at roughly 10 to 20 percent of people over 60.
• Dementia: a lasting decline in memory and thinking that gets in the way of daily life. Alzheimer’s disease is the most common kind. Dr Lisa Mosconi, in The XX Brain, notes the changes begin decades before symptoms, often in the forties and fifties, and that about two thirds of people with Alzheimer’s are women.

If you have ever searched how to avoid dementia, the plain answer is that no one can promise it. But that long, slow start is the hopeful part. It means the years in which you can lower your risk are long, and cognitive decline is not simply fate. The 2024 Lancet Commission on dementia named 14 risks people can change, and yoga works on at least 7 of them.

“So I had to learn wisdom, wisdom through adversity.”

What Mr BKS Iyengar taught about memory

In short: tell ordinary forgetfulness apart from dementia, then calm the brain and keep the body active.

In Yoga: The Path to Holistic Health, Mr Iyengar sets out a yoga approach for 72 health conditions, including memory impairment (p. 353). In our words, he says ageing often brings a mild loss of memory, and that this must be told apart from the start of serious, progressive dementia such as Alzheimer’s disease. His approach for memory uses standing forward bends, supported head-down poses and reclining poses. A few ideas run through his teaching on the brain:

• Poses work on the brain, not only the body. He held that asanas, though they look physical, influence the chemical balance of the brain (p. 37). His claim, from a lifetime of teaching.
• Alert but relaxed. He wrote that head-down poses calm and stimulate the brain at once, leaving it “alert but relaxed” (p. 37).
• A quiet brain through the breath. In pranayama, he says, the brain is quiet, and this lets the nervous system work better (p. 55). A slow, effortless out-breath stills the thoughts (p. 42).
• Memory is a faculty to train. He lists memory among the mind’s main faculties, with correct observation and imagination, and links awareness and memory to changing old habits (pp. 50 to 51).
• His own brain kept learning. After a severe accident in 1979, when he was about 60, Mr Iyengar lost much of his practice. He relearned it from the soles of his feet up, and later said this made him a better teacher. He practised and taught into his nineties.

We do not publish his sequences. A sequence needs a teacher who can see you and adapt each pose, which is what a class is for.

“It sharpens the memory and brings clarity of thought.”

What Geeta S Iyengar taught about the mind and memory

In short: forward bends to clear the mind, an upright spine to keep it alert, and balance poses to make it attend.

Geeta S Iyengar, Mr Iyengar’s daughter, wrote Yoga: A Gem for Women, and her approach matters here because women carry most of the burden of Alzheimer’s, as people with the disease and as carers. Her views, in our words:

• Forward bends for a clear head. Of the seated forward bend (Paschimottanasana) she writes that it sharpens the memory and brings clarity of thought. Her claim, from her own long practice and teaching.
• An upright spine keeps the mind alert. In the seated poses, she says, the erect spine keeps the mind firm, attentive and alert.
• Balance makes the brain attend. In her book for beginners, Yoga in Action, she says that in all the balancing poses the brain has to be attentive and the mind alert.
• Calm and alert in pranayama. She asks for the brain to be kept calm and passive, and at the same time alert, throughout pranayama. We follow her approach to pranayama at Flametree.
• Any age. Her words: “Yoga can be done by all at any age.”

For women in the menopause years, foggy thinking is common. Our menopause guide sets out Geeta Iyengar’s approach to that time of life in full.

“The brain can learn only when it begins to relax.”

What Dr Timothy McCall says

In short: both conditions are on his list of those helped by yoga, and the road runs through the heart and blood vessels.

Dr McCall is a US medical doctor and yoga therapist, author of Yoga as Medicine and former medical editor of Yoga Journal. His June 2019 list of conditions helped by yoga includes Alzheimer’s disease (no. 2) and cognitive impairment (no. 19).

• Blood pressure and the brain. He notes that poorly controlled high blood pressure raises the risk of heart attack, stroke, kidney failure and dementia. Yoga with breathing and meditation lowers blood pressure, so this is one clear road from the mat to the brain.

What Dr Krishna Raman says

In short: sit upright so blood reaches the brain and the mind stays awake, and practise correctly, never to excess.

Dr Raman is a Chennai physician who trained in yoga under Mr Iyengar. His question-and-answer book on yoga and medical science lists memory and dementia among the brain and nerve conditions it covers. His views, in our words:

• Sit tall. Sitting upright for meditation lets blood reach the brain more easily, and avoids dullness as well as back and neck pain.
• Two ways of attending. Concentration is single-pointed attention; meditation is a wider, many-pointed awareness. A yoga class trains both.
• Head-down poses and the brain. In his view, the brain protects its own blood supply, so a well-done headstand does not flood the brain with blood. He also warns against excess, such as hours of headstand a day. Headstand is not for everyone, and in class it is taught step by step, only when you are ready.

“To tame the brain, tame the breath.”

Other yoga voices on memory and the ageing brain

• Scattered attention turned into striking focus. Leigh Milne, an American Iyengar teacher, ran a 12-week class for older people in rural Vermont, many in their eighties and early nineties. Attention was scattered at first; by the end it was strikingly focused, and balance had improved. Told by Suza Francina in The New Yoga for Healthy Aging.
• “I can think better.” Suza Francina says her older students often tell her their minds seem clearer, and that this deserves research.
• Balance is a brain job. Mel Robin, an Iyengar teacher and scientist, calls the cerebellum (the brain’s balance centre) “a key factor in keeping one’s balance”. A Physiological Handbook for Teachers of Yogasana, chapter 3.
• Still teaching at 92. Tania Dyett teaches weekly in Wellington, New Zealand, gets up from the floor through Downward Dog, and uses a chair for balance poses since a broken hip.
• Daily practice is ideal, and at least two or three hour-long sessions a week for thinking. Mary Flaherty, Does Yoga Work?, her chapter on ageing.
• A real class beats brain games. Brain-training games mostly make you better at the game. Learning something complex, new and social works better. Dr Sanjay Gupta, a neurosurgeon, in Keep Sharp (not a yoga book).

For men: your brain needs this too

Alzheimer’s is more common in women, so it is easy for men to think dementia is mostly a women’s worry. It is not. The heart and blood vessel risks that Dr McCall links to dementia, such as high blood pressure and stroke, weigh heavily on men. In a German study of over 3 million stroke admissions, men had higher rates of both main kinds of stroke at every age. And in a Dutch study of 4,164 people, an unhealthy lifestyle score went with worse thinking in everyone, but only in men was it also linked with less grey matter and worse memory.

Yet men do far less yoga than women. In a national survey of Australian yoga practitioners, 85% were women. The things on this page, a class that keeps you moving, a breath that brings blood pressure and stress down, and a room full of people, suit men just as well. About a third of the people in Flametree’s classes are men, and Stuart’s own story, further down this page, is a man’s story.

“The body should be the performer and the brain the observer.”

What the research shows

In short: yoga, Kundalini yoga and a short daily chant all improved memory and thinking in older adults, and brain scans of people who do yoga look younger in the places that shrink with age. Most studies are small and short, and none has yet tested Iyengar yoga for memory. Why the difference matters.

Yoga of many styles: memory and thinking in older adults

• Yoga gave small to moderate gains in memory, in planning and switching between tasks, and in attention and speed of thinking, with no harms reported. Bhattacharyya 2020, a review of 12 studies and 912 older adults (239 with memory problems). Read the study.
• After 6 months, the yoga group did better on memory, attention, word-finding and speed of thinking than the waitlist. Daily yoga for a month, weekly to month 3, then on their own. Hariprasad 2013, 87 care-home residents in Bangalore who finished the trial. Read the study. A yoga module of general style, not Iyengar yoga. Why it matters.
• Yoga sped up switching between tasks and improved working memory, more than stretching and strengthening did. Hour-long classes 3 times a week for 8 weeks. Gothe 2014, 118 adults with an average age of 62. Read the study. Hatha yoga in general, not Iyengar yoga. Why it matters.
• Yoga was linked with healthier structure and function in the memory centre (hippocampus), the alarm centre (amygdala) and the planning centre (prefrontal cortex), regions that shrink with age. Gothe 2019, a review of 11 brain-scan studies of yoga. Read the study.
• People who do yoga did not show the usual fall in grey matter with age, and more years and hours of practice went with more grey matter, including in the memory centre. Villemure 2015, a brain-scan comparison of yoga practitioners and non-practitioners. Read the study.
• Women with 8 or more years of yoga had a thicker planning area of the brain than matched women who did not do yoga. Afonso 2017, 21 older women who practise yoga and 21 who do not. Read the study.

Kundalini yoga and Kirtan Kriya

These trials tested Kundalini yoga, and Kirtan Kriya, a 12-minute chant with finger movements from the Kundalini tradition. They are some of the strongest memory trials of any yoga, and good news for yoga and for breath and chant practice in general. Iyengar yoga has not yet been tested in this way. Why the kind of yoga matters.

• Both groups improved in memory, but only the Kundalini yoga group improved in planning and switching tasks, and in mood and resilience. Twelve weeks of Kundalini yoga against memory enhancement training, the “gold standard”. Eyre 2017, 81 people aged 55 and over with mild cognitive impairment, at UCLA. Read the study.
• The memory training group lost grey matter in several areas compared with the Kundalini yoga and Kirtan Kriya group. Twelve weeks. Krause-Sorio 2022, 22 women with memory worries and heart disease risks, a very small trial. Read the study.
• Kundalini yoga improved memory and planning in every trial, with better mood and brain connections in some. Giridharan 2024, a review of 5 trials and 215 people aged 55 and over with memory problems. Read the study.

Iyengar yoga studies

No trial has yet tested Iyengar yoga for memory or dementia risk. Not yet studied is not the same as not working. The one Iyengar trial below tested balance, which is a brain skill, and it tested Iyengar yoga specifically, taught by trained Iyengar teachers.

• Iyengar yoga improved standing balance, getting up from a chair, walking speed and standing on one leg with the eyes closed, with no serious harms. Twelve weeks, twice a week, mainly standing poses. Tiedemann 2013, a Sydney pilot of 54 people with an average age of 68. Read the study.

Meditation, chanting and mindfulness

Kirtan Kriya is a chant from the Kundalini tradition. These are short, daily calming practices, and in our view they overlap with pranayama: a steady breath and a steady mind.

• Both groups improved markedly in memory and thinking tests at 3 months, and the gains held or grew at 6 months. Twelve minutes a day of Kirtan Kriya, or of music listening. Innes 2017, 60 adults with memory worries. Read the study. Music listening did nearly as well, which says a calm daily habit counts.
• Both groups improved in stress, mood, sleep and quality of life, at 12 weeks and at 6 months. The same trial, with Kirtan Kriya and music listening. Innes 2016. Read the study.
• Blood flow rose in the brain’s planning areas, and word-finding and memory tests improved. An 8-week meditation programme. Newberg 2010, a first study of 14 people with memory problems, with no comparison group. Read the study.
• Family carers who did Kirtan Kriya had fewer symptoms of depression and better thinking than those who listened to music, and an enzyme that protects the ends of chromosomes rose by 43%. Twelve minutes a day for 8 weeks. Lavretsky 2013, 39 family carers of people with dementia. Read the study.
• Grey matter rose in the left memory centre (hippocampus) and the balance centre (cerebellum) after an 8-week mindfulness course. Holzel 2011, 16 adults new to meditation against 17 on a waitlist. Read the study.

Reviews of mind-body practice: yoga, tai chi, qigong and meditation

• Mind-body practice improved thinking in people over 60. It worked when programmes ran longer than 12 weeks, or 3 to 7 times a week, or 45 to 60 minutes a session. Chan 2019, a review of 41 studies and 3,551 people. Read the study.
• Mind-body practice gave a moderate gain in seeing and placing things in space, and small gains in remembering words, speed of thinking and working memory, with larger gains in people with mild cognitive impairment. Yoga and tai chi did better than meditation for space and word memory. Suk 2025, a review of 45 studies and 4,602 older people. Read the study.
• In people with mild cognitive impairment, mind-body practice improved overall thinking, word-finding, planning and memory. Programmes over 12 weeks did better for word-finding. Dong 2026, a review of 17 trials and 1,251 older adults. Read the study.

Breathing practice (pranayama)

No trial has yet tested pranayama on its own for memory in older adults. Not yet studied is not the same as not working. Breathing was part of several of the yoga and Kundalini programmes above, and Kirtan Kriya is itself a steady breath and chant. Mr Iyengar held that in pranayama the brain is quiet, and Geeta Iyengar asked for a brain both calm and alert. The pranayama we teach (staircase, ocean, alternate nostril, humming and a gentle shining skull breath) is slow, nasal and taught step by step. Why the kind of breathing matters.

The bigger picture: risk factors and exercise

• Fourteen risks people can change account for a large share of dementia worldwide, including inactivity, high blood pressure, diabetes, depression and social isolation. Livingston 2024, the Lancet Commission on dementia, 27 experts. Read the report.
• More active people had about 20% lower risk of dementia, and the link held in studies that followed people for 20 years or more. Iso-Markku 2022, a review of 58 studies and nearly 258,000 people. Read the study.
• A year of walking grew the front of the memory centre by about 2% and improved spatial memory, while it shrank in the stretching group. Erickson 2011, a trial of 120 older adults. Exercise, not yoga. Read the study.

“Do not clench your teeth or you will also be “clenching” your brain.”

How this comes together in a Flametree class

Everything above points the same way, and it is how we teach in Darwin and online.

• Attention in every pose. Iyengar yoga asks you to notice the feet, the knees, the spine and the breath, all at once. That is a lot of brain work.
• Something new every week. Poses change from class to class, so the brain keeps learning.
• Balance work, with support. Standing poses and one-leg poses, near a wall or a chair, so the wobble is safe.
• Props in every class: chairs, blocks, belts, blankets and the wall, so each pose fits your body at any age.
• Classes adapted to the people in them. No one-size-fits-all. Tell your teacher what is going on, and the poses are changed for you.
• Breath and calm: every class ends in rest, our restorative yoga classes go slower, and our pranayama classes go further.
• Company. A regular class, with the same faces, is one of the best things you can do for a brain.

Our own story is part of this. Stuart, yoga teacher, Flametree Yoga Darwin, slipped on wet rock at Edith Falls and had a bleed on the brain that needed burr-hole surgery. Afterwards he went back to his yoga and took up pranayama, especially the humming breath, in earnest. His recovery was very fast. He is careful not to claim yoga healed his brain, but in his own words: “My brain has never worked better.” His story is in our post on the humming breath.

Read more on memory and brain health

• Yoga for brain health: what the studies suggest about memory and ageing
• Dementia risk factors: yoga works on 7 of the 14 you can change
• How to improve memory after 50
• How to improve concentration
• Yoga for over 50: what a good class works on
• How to improve balance after 50
• Bhramari pranayama: the humming breath, and Stuart’s story
• Fuzzy thinking from menopause
• Yoga activities for seniors in Darwin
• All our brain, memory and ageing notes

Take it further

• Classes, in Darwin or LIVE online: new, or away 3 months or more? 2 free classes, then 10 at half price. Already practising yoga? See the non-beginner half price pass. See every class time.
• Masterclasses: our 2027 Sunday Arvo Masterclasses with Chris Lalor, Certified Senior Iyengar Yoga Teacher and certified Yoga Therapist, include sleep and energy, and anxiety, upsets and anger, two of the biggest everyday drains on memory. Bookings open soon.
• Retreats: a week of daily, adapted yoga in Bali. See the retreats.

Other conditions are in our encyclopaedia of yoga for health conditions.

Memory, dementia risk and yoga: questions people ask

What is the difference between ordinary forgetfulness and mild cognitive impairment?

Ordinary forgetfulness, such as a name on the tip of the tongue or lost keys, is common with age and often comes from not paying full attention in the first place. Mild cognitive impairment means memory or thinking slipping more than age alone explains, while daily life still goes on. Mr BKS Iyengar made the same distinction in Yoga: The Path to Holistic Health: mild memory loss often comes with ageing, and must be told apart from serious, progressive dementia.

Can yoga help someone who already has mild cognitive impairment?

Yes. In a UCLA trial of 81 people with mild cognitive impairment, 12 weeks of Kundalini yoga improved memory, and improved planning and mood more than memory training did. Reviews of mind-body practice found larger gains in people with mild cognitive impairment than in people without it. These trials tested Kundalini yoga; Iyengar yoga has not yet been tested for memory.

What is Kirtan Kriya, and does it help memory?

Kirtan Kriya is a 12-minute chant with simple finger movements, from the Kundalini yoga tradition. In a trial of 60 adults with memory worries, 12 minutes a day for 3 months improved memory and thinking tests, and the gains held at 6 months. Music listening did nearly as well, which suggests a calm daily habit is what counts. In another trial, family carers who did it had fewer symptoms of depression.

Is it too late to start yoga at 70 or 80 for the brain?

No. In a trial in Bangalore care homes, residents who did yoga had better memory and attention after 6 months. An American Iyengar teacher ran a class for people in their eighties and early nineties whose scattered attention became strikingly focused. Mr Iyengar practised and taught into his nineties. You do not need to be fit or flexible: chairs, blocks and the wall make the poses fit you.

Does breathing practice (pranayama) help memory?

No trial has yet tested pranayama on its own for memory in older adults, and not yet studied is not the same as not working. Breathing was part of several of the yoga programmes that improved memory, and the best-tested chant, Kirtan Kriya, is a steady breath practice. Mr Iyengar held that in pranayama the brain is quiet, and a calm brain is one that can learn.

Can yoga help a family carer of someone with dementia?

Yes. In a trial of 39 family carers of people with dementia, 12 minutes a day of the chant Kirtan Kriya for 8 weeks lowered symptoms of depression and improved mental health and thinking more than listening to relaxing music. Caring is hard on the carer’s own brain and mood, and a calm daily practice, or a weekly class with other people, gives something back.

Why do I walk into a room and forget why I went?

Usually because the thought was never fully taken in. Memory has three steps: taking it in, keeping it, and finding it again, and attention is the gate to the first. When the mind is busy elsewhere, the thought slips through. Yoga trains attention: holding a pose while noticing the feet, the spine and the breath is attention practice, and trials found yoga improved attention in older adults.

Is there a yoga class in Darwin or online for memory and brain health?

Yes. Flametree Yoga Studio teaches Iyengar yoga at Woolner and Coolalinga in Darwin, and LIVE online across Australia, with balance work, pranayama and props in every class, and gentle and restorative classes too. New, or away 3 months or more? You get 2 free classes, then 10 at half price.

Where this comes from: BKS Iyengar, Yoga: The Path to Holistic Health (Dorling Kindersley), memory impairment (p. 353) and the introductory chapters (pp. 37 to 55, 181); Light on Life; Iyengar: His Life and Work; teachers’ class in Australia, 1992. Geeta S Iyengar, Yoga: A Gem for Women and Yoga in Action. Timothy McCall MD, Yoga as Medicine (Bantam), and his June 2019 list of health conditions helped by yoga. Krishna Raman MD and S. Suresh MD, Yoga and Medical Science: FAQ. Suza Francina, The New Yoga for Healthy Aging. Mel Robin, A Physiological Handbook for Teachers of Yogasana. Mary Flaherty, Does Yoga Work?. Sanjay Gupta MD, Keep Sharp. Lisa Mosconi PhD, The XX Brain. Penman and others, Yoga in Australia, a national survey, 2012 (link). Kelly and others, stroke in Germany by age and sex, 2024 (link). Heger and others, the Maastricht Study, 2021 (link). Studies as linked above. Everything is summarised in our own words.

This page is general information, not medical advice. Flametree Yoga Studio, Darwin and LIVE online.