An estimated 20.4 million Americans are currently practicing yoga, according to Yoga Journal. Why is yoga booming right now, and what is driving people to participate in this growing exercise?

Yoga helps improve flexibility, strengthen balance, and reduce stress. However, traditional yoga instructors and students are more concerned with the effects yoga has on the “mind, spirit, and body” connection.

Janie Wilson, a yoga instructor at Drury University, talked with The Scoop about the impact yoga has made in her life and reasons why more people may be joining the exercise trend.

Q: How long have you done yoga? What made you want to start? 

A: Fall of 2000 was when I retired from teaching. My next-door neighbor was teaching yoga. She was in such good health and had such a positive attitude about life. I thought, “I want what she’s got, ya know?”

So I had never heard of it (yoga) or knew anything about it. I had never been a sports person, and so I’m not talented. Yoga was something you could do and not compete with someone, just yourself. That is really the reason why I took it. You know, I taught little kids for 25 years, so I just wanted to do something for me. I thought, “What am I going to do with my time?” My neighbor said she went on a Tuesday nights and asked me to come with her. I went.

Q: Why should more people take part in yoga?

A: I really do believe that it is necessary to move the body, no matter if it is walking or skipping. We need to move. We have become sedentary. Everyone is tied to his or her electronics, and so it (yoga) is something that will take you away. I have a friend that takes ballroom dancing. She is a professional here in town … She spends 12 hours a week dancing, moving. I’d love to see more people walk, swim, or something that they like to do to move.

Q: Why would you recommend more college students take yoga?

A: I believe college kids are one of the most stressed-out groups of kids. Think about it: you put your shoes on this morning, and you probably don’t take those shoes off until night because you are just going and going. Think about your feet. This is what I tell to some of my kids that refuse to take their socks off; I say think about how you are abusing your feet. You don’t let air get to them. We need to widen our feet just like we do anything else. And if we want kids to be globally smart, math smart, language smart, don’t we need for them to be body smart? Know about body rest? Be mind smart? Understand mind rest?

I believe there is a mind, body, and spirit connection. You have to stop. But you can’t do that on your own unless you have the opportunity to. That needs to be a part of the curriculum. If we are going to make these kids compete with the kids from Argentina, the kids from anywhere, they have to have interpersonal skills. Most importantly, you must like yourself. I want students to see themselves through my eyes: the beauty, the youth, the genuineness. I see kids genuinely here. I love teaching children.

One time, someone asked me what the difference was between teaching little kids and big kids. I said really just the size of their bodies. Their hearts are the same. Little kids are honest. College kids are honest. If they don’t like you, you know it.

Q: How has yoga impacted you the most?

A: Yoga keeps me aware. I’m heavier now than I’ve been for a while. You know, about 10 pounds. However, I’ve lost six of them in just the last couple of months. Yoga has made me age more gracefully. I’ve worked at it. I have good balance, good stamina, and I don’t even practice every single day. I think that is the benefit for anyone that practices yoga.

You know I am a happy person. I look at life through a half-full glass. So maybe that is what yoga has done for me, helped me keep my attitude … and I’ve had some trauma in my life. … It hasn’t always been good. You just have to tie a knot in the rope and hang on.

Q: What has been the most significant thing yoga has taught you?

A: I think the nicest thing for me is that I can focus on the students learning, instead of the teaching. It is important because all of our bodies are different. I get to watch kids start out on the journey.

One little girl was so pleased one year; after six weeks, she said, “Look Miss Janie, I can get my fingers to the floor.” It was about celebrating the little subtle changes.

I’ve been very blessed with the Drury kids. They are a good group. As for me, I think that’s what teaching should be, about the students and about their learning. If we make it about us, it is ego-driven. And I don’t think that is what yoga is. I don’t think that is what Mr. Iyengar (he developed special techniques and spiritual practices that now make up Iyengar Yoga) would have wanted it to be like.

One time, I had this little girl — she was beautiful, she was a blonde, and she always came in a gray, big, old sweatshirt and sweatpants … and at the end of school, in her all-about-me paper, she said to me, “Miss Janie, I didn’t know that you could tell people that they couldn’t touch you until I took your yoga class.” Then she confided in me that she had been physically, emotionally, and sexually abused. It took her five years to graduate. She took all three of the classes I taught, and she came back every semester when she felt like she wasn’t in a good emotional place. I had a mat; when I’d see her at the door, I’d just set her up.

So it really is about the kids. To me, it means this. This is what I have next to my bed. (Holds up a picture frame that says,”Children are always the only future the human race has; teach them well.”)