"The Science of Yoga" by William J. Broad details the health benefits and risks, creative advantages, and history of yoga. Broad references a variety of yoga postures in the book, but for the ones he mentions more than once, there is a picture to go with the description. I think that these pictures would have been most helpful to a beginner who is unfamiliar with the posture names. Since I’m a visual learner, in my first year of practicing yoga I paid close attention to instructors demonstrating the poses. Sometimes just hearing an instructor explain a pose wasn’t enough for me, so I like that this book provided options for readers.

The snippets of yoga history that were included in each of the book’s seven sections were fascinating. Before reading this book, I read "The Goddess Pose" by Michelle Goldberg, which was about the life of Indra Devi. Now I find her to be the most interesting yogini to learn about, especially with how she’s impacted Western culture and yoga for women in general. I believe that Indra Devi is an excellent example of a yoga student whose equal parts confident and respectful. She wasn’t afraid to study advanced postures, but she realized that she would need teachers to support her.

In the “Muse” section of the book, Broad explained the relationship between yoga and creativity. This section was more beneficial to me above everything else, as I could easily understand the argument and evidence the author was presenting. As a writer, I’ve found that yoga has benefited my creative process. Meditation helps to relax, or at least steady my thoughts when I’m in the middle of editing or researching a story. An important point that Broad includes about this is that yoga, while being beneficial to some writers, can’t make anybody talented overnight. This section was fantastic to read, as I felt that it summed up my personal experience with yoga, and how my writing was impacted through my practice.

Overall I thought the book was equal parts useful and meticulously researched. In some places, I wouldn’t have minded if the statistics and anecdotes would have been shorter. The author got his point across early on in each chapter, so sometimes the sections felt prolonged. I’m not sure if I agree with Broad’s description of Savasana being the “easiest of yoga’s positions.” For me, it’s always been the most difficult posture. I enjoy dynamic movement in my yoga practice, so suddenly to cease all activity feels uncomfortable to me. Additionally, the couple ideas expressed in the book about the future of yoga therapy and government funding for yoga research were thought-provoking to me. I had never thought about yoga being the future of healthcare, but now it seems like a change that could benefit the world in a positive way.