What 3 Days of Yoga Does to YOUR DNA 🧬

I want to share something with you that genuinely stopped me in my tracks this week. I was surprised. But not really 🤔

I was scratching around some research late at night - 8pm specifically when Laura goes to bed 😮 - and I stumbled upon something.

You know that feeling after a good yoga session where everything just feels... settled? Calmer. Clearer. Like something inside you has exhaled? 😮‍💨🤷🏾‍♂️

Turns out that's not just in your head. It's in your gut. Literally.

A clinical study (published in February 2025 in BMC Complementary Medicine and Therapies) followed 24 people through a 9-day yoga retreat - combining "breathwork", 'meditation", gentle movement, and a vegetarian diet. Scientists took gut and saliva samples at day one, day three, and day nine, and used advanced DNA sequencing 🧬 to read the genetic fingerprint of every microbial species living inside these people 🦠🪱

What they found? Within just 3 days, the gut microbiome had already significantly shifted. And not in a vague, hard-to-measure way. It was massively significant.

One of the biggest beneficiaries was a bacterium called Faecalibacterium (not the one I harp on about in the Teacher training 😏). It's actually one of the most important anti-inflammatory bugs your gut can have. It produces something called butyrate, which essentially acts like a repair crew for your gut lining - sealing it up, keeping inflammation down ,👎🏽 and supporting your immune system.

Interestingly - At the start of the retreat, beginners and experienced practitioners had completely different gut profiles. Different bacteria, different diversity, different everything. Which makes sense. Different lifestyles, different histories.

By day nine? Their profiles had converged. Moving toward the same healthy microbial fingerprint.

The practice itself was the driving force. Not genetics. Not how long you'd been doing yoga. Not how flexible you were or weren't. It was the yoga - the breathing, the movement (the teacher & the community to a degree I imagine).

If that doesn't give you a gut feeling that this practice is something special, I don't know what will 😄 (I have no gut puns in my repotoire 🙂‍↕️)

In case you didnt know....

Your gut isn't just digesting your lunch. It's in constant two-way communication with your brain via something called the gut-brain axis - a biochemical motorway connecting your digestive system directly to your central nervous system (Laura talks about this in our TT).

Here's the stat that tends to stop people mid-scroll: around 90% of your body's serotonin (the neurotransmitter most associated with mood, wellbeing, and emotional regulation) is produced in your gut. Not your brain. Your gut.

So the bacteria living down there are influencing how you feel, how you think, how you sleep, and how you handle stress. Every single day.

When yoga reshapes that ecosystem (even in three days). It's not just changing your digestion. It's potentially reshaping the very environment that determines your mood, your mental clarity, and your resilience.

What does this mean practically?

It means your practice is never wasted. Even the days it feels uninspired. Even the short sessions. Even the ones where your mind won't quieten down and you spend half of savasana thinking about what's for dinner. Trust the science. Your biology is still responding.

Now typical me. I did some further digging. I wanted to know how the study defined "breathework" and "meditation". Every man and his dog has done some form of fancy breathework but it doesn't mean it is always effective. I have to rummage through the paper a bit more (it's a heavy read) and I will let you know what I find in the next email :)

See, Yoga does help you get your sh*t together 🫣

What 3 Days of Yoga Did to Their DNA 🧬 part 2

The response to my last BLOG/email on the 2025 gut microbiome research was incredible - thank you. A few key questions that kept coming up (even though I said I would research and get back to you 🫣🤣), so let me address them quickly.

What type of yoga was studied? It was a "meditation" heavy practice combining pranayama, light movement, and focused breathwork. I couldn't find any evidence of Half Moon into Warrior 3 sadly. It's so hard to know what is meant by meditation these days. I'm pretty sure what they did in this retreat is not what I would call meditation but hey.

Participants practised 16-18 hours daily over 9 days in a controlled retreat setting. Thats just a few more hours than the yoga with us in Morrocco 🫣 Although pose selection is not listed anywhere, you can safely assume it was gentle and "mindful" (as I type rolling my eyes) and there was lots of surrendering.

What about diet and environment? Everyone followed an identical vegetarian diet with no alcohol, caffeine, or animal products. I call it the anti-Zee diet.

The retreat was held at a rural centre in New York, minimising external stressors and the students were of all nationalities. There is no evidence that Trump was handing out bananas after class.

Diet and environment BOTH likely contributed to the result - but the research points mainly to the yoga (movement and breathing) as the integrating force that made the rapid changes in the Gut possible.

In my opinion, based on the science. The biggest factor would be the conscious breathing. Or simply breathing - in the absence of stress.

Why does breathing matter so much? As most of you know (as I harp on about it so much) - breathing is the engine. It regulates the nervous system, lowers cortisol, and stimulates the vagus nerve - all of which directly influence your gut. Without the breathing, the other pieces don't come together the same way.

The takeaway: diet and environment help, but yoga - particularly mindful breathing - is what ties it all together.

There is a story from the Chandogya Upanishad: 👇🏽

The senses gathered to debate who among them was the most essential. Sight left the body for a year 👀 - the person lived on, blind but alive. Hearing departed 👂🏽- the person lived on, deaf but alive. Speech left 🤬 - the person lived on, mute but alive. Mind withdrew 💭 - the person lived on, like one deep asleep.

Then Prana (the breath) began to leave 😮‍💨 And as it rose to depart, it pulled every other sense out with it, like a great horse tears its tethering pegs from the ground.

They all returned. They gathered at the feet of Prana and said: "You are the greatest. We did not know. Please stay."

If that story hit different - your gut already knew.

Btw, I've unlocked my breathing course 'What Every Student & Teacher Should Know About Breathing' (usually £29). It's FREE for now. Consider it my way of helping you digest all of this properly 🫣

Reply with any questions - Just no comments on my cringe puns. As always, I'll act happy to hear from you 😀

Namaskar

Zahir

P.S. If you found this interesting and you're someone who wants to understand the science behind what yoga actually does to the human body (beyond the poses and the philosophy) Our TT's make the complex stuff genuinely simple 👇🏽

☯️ Yin Teacher Training - May 2026

YOGA TEACHER TRAINING OCT 2026

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