It is no surprise that two things such as yoga and yogurt would blend together so well.

Thanks to the new Wellness and Health Promotion team at UND, yoga and yogurt can now be enjoyed together in one healthy event.

Yoga and yogurt actually have very similar benefits so it makes sense to put them together.

The Wellness and Health Promotion team put on a “Yoga and Yogurt” event September 21st, usually held once a year. The event was free and included a short relaxation yoga session and a free yoga parfait bar right after.

The parfait bar featured many nutritious and delicious things to put in your post-yoga parfait, including dried fruit, nuts, chia seeds and honey.

Although the benefits of yoga are numerous, the obvious ones are improvements in balance, strength, coordination, and relaxation. Yoga also promotes digestive health, as many poses help improve circulation throughout the body and encourage digestion.

Yogurt also indirectly promotes the exact same things as yoga.

The digestive health component of yoga is pretty well known, thanks to the probiotics and live cultures that are usually contained in the yogurt. The other benefits come from the various vitamins and minerals in the yogurt.

Yogurt contributes to calming the body because when the body is digesting, the parasympathetic nervous system (also called the “rest and digest” branch) is activated more so than the sympathetic (also called the “fight or flight” system)

Yogurt has vitamins and minerals such as potassium, phosphorus, zinc and vitamin B5. It also contains vitamin B12 which is key to maintaining red blood cells and helps with nervous system function.

The high calcium content in yogurt has been shown to benefit bone mass given that there is a sufficient amount of vitamin D as well. The calcium also helps strengthen teeth and prevent cavities.

In addition, yogurt contains amino acids, which are used to build and restore muscles after use in yoga.

With all of this, make sure you buy the “live culture” yogurt, otherwise you might miss out on some of the wonderful benefits, and as always try to buy organic.

A yoga and yogurt session a day keeps the body happy and healthy.

Journey Gontjes is a staff writer for The Dakota Student. She can be reached at [email protected]