Yoga developed in cultures where daily physical effort was a given—where walking, squatting, lifting, and carrying were part of life. In that context, yoga wasn’t meant to be a workout. It was a recovery practice, a way to restore balance after movement, not to replace it.

But today, in a world where many people spend their days sitting, yoga is often used as a substitute for movement rather than a natural closing phase of effort. And that’s why it doesn’t always feel intuitive. When yoga follows movement, it works with the body’s natural cycle. But when yoga is the only movement in a sedentary life, it has to do double the work—first waking up the nervous system, then attempting to provide release.

In this episode of Rebellious Healing, we explore why yoga was never meant to stand alone, the physiological and neurochemical reasons why it feels better after exertion, and how you can reclaim yoga’s original purpose—to restore, recover, and bring the body back into balance.