A few weeks ago, someone asked me about my heart rate during class.  So, I’m sharing two weeks of data & one big reminder: yoga is a balance of effort & ease (Yoga Sutra 2.46).  This is exactly what my heart-rate data reveals: yoga isn’t about staying comfortable, and it’s not about chasing intensity either. Sthira is the strength to stay engaged when the body is working and the heart rate rises. Sukha is the skill of staying relaxed, spacious, and breathing smoothly inside that effort. The goal isn’t “low heart rate yoga” or “high heart rate yoga.” The goal is building a body and nervous system that can hold both: stable like a mountain, soft like an open hand.

For the last few weeks, I’ve been tracking my average heart rate during yoga classes, both when I’m teaching and when I’m teaching while practicing.

I didn’t do this to “optimize” yoga into a fitness program.
I did it because I’m curious about something deeper:

What’s happening inside the body when we’re doing this work regularly, consistently, in real life?

Not yoga as an idea.
Yoga as a lived experience.

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My Heart Rate (2 Weeks)

Here’s what I recorded:  (I’ve shared my calorie burn previously.  Check it out.)

• Hatha (Teaching & Practicing) – 113 BPM (Friday)

• Vinyasa (Teaching & Practicing) – 143 BPM (Thursday)

• Vinyasa (Teaching & Practicing) – 133 BPM (Wednesday)

• Vinyasa (Teaching & Practicing) – 134 BPM (Tuesday)

• Vinyasa (Teaching & Practicing) – 146 BPM (Monday)

• Hatha (Practicing) – 120 BPM (Monday)

• Vinyasa (Practicing) – 151 BPM (Sunday)

• Hatha (Practicing) – 147 BPM (Sunday)

• Hatha (Teaching) – 136 BPM (Saturday)

• Vinyasa (Teaching & Practicing) – 143 BPM (Saturday)

• Hatha (Teaching & Practicing) – 163 BPM (Friday)

• Vinyasa (Teaching & Practicing) – 140 BPM (Thursday)

• Vinyasa (Teaching & Practicing) – 137 BPM (Wednesday)

• Hatha (Teaching) – 109 BPM (Tuesday)

• Vinyasa (Teaching & Practicing) – 146 BPM (Monday)

• Hatha (Teaching) – 129 BPM (Sunday)

• Vinyasa (Teaching & Practicing) – 148 BPM (Saturday)

• Hatha (Teaching) – 126 BPM (Saturday)

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What Stands Out Immediately

1) Vinyasa consistently pushes my heart rate higher

No surprise: Vinyasa is rhythmic, continuous, and often builds heat quickly.

Across this stretch, my Vinyasa classes commonly landed around:

140–151 BPM

That range tells a story: steady effort, elevated output, sustained movement.

This isn’t “just stretching.”
It’s training.

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2) Hatha isn’t always “low intensity”

This one surprised me.

Hatha can be slower, more deliberate… but that doesn’t automatically mean it’s “easy.”

Some Hatha classes were calm and grounded:

• 109 BPM (Teaching)

• 113 BPM (Teaching & Practicing)

• 120 BPM (Practicing)

But others climbed into serious intensity:

• 147 BPM (Practicing)

• 163 BPM (Teaching & Practicing) 🔥

That 163 BPM day is a reminder of something important:

Slow doesn’t mean soft.
Still doesn’t mean simple.

Long holds, deep engagement, strong standing work, balance demands, heat… all of it adds up.

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3) Teaching changes the nervous system (even when the body isn’t moving as much)

Teaching isn’t passive.

Even when I’m cueing, observing, walking the room, demonstrating in bursts, my system is still working:

• attention

• timing

• breath control

• energy management

• presence

In other words:
you can be calm externally and still “working” internally.

This is one of the hidden powers of teaching: it forces you into a kind of focused awareness that feels almost like moving meditation… but with responsibility.

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The Bigger Lesson: Yoga Isn’t JUST One Thing

Yoga has a reputation for being relaxing.
And yes, it can be.

But yoga is also:

• conditioning

• resilience training

• nervous system education

• emotional regulation

• breath mastery under stress

• recovery practice that still builds strength

Sometimes yoga restores you by slowing the heartbeat down.

Sometimes yoga restores you by teaching you to breathe while it’s elevated.

Both matter.

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Why This Matters (The Heart Reads Energy)

Most people don’t need more chaos.
They need a practice that makes them capable.

Your heart needs two things to stay strong:

1. Periods of healthy challenge

2. Recovery that actually restores

Yoga gives you both, especially when you practice consistently.

The goal isn’t to max out your heart rate.
The goal is to become someone who can meet intensity without panic… and return to calm without collapse.

That’s yoga.

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My Takeaway

After tracking these numbers, the most honest thing I can say is:

Yoga is not about avoiding intensity.
It’s about staying present inside of it.

And some days, the practice is fire.
Some days, the practice is stillness.
But either way, something inside you is being trained:

your heart. your breath. your attention. your steadiness.

Join us for a class today & stay tuned for an update tomorrow.

I’m going to layer my sleep data onto this same date range. 😴📈🧘‍♂️

Let’s see what the nights were doing while the practice was training my heart.