Does yoga help?

My friends lately have been trying yoga classes and have been pressuring me to go. After class on Tuesday I finally gave in and paid my $15 and went to a yoga class. After being in the class for about 10 min I began to think back to our discussions from class about mindfulness and Buddhism and as the yoga teacher was walking us through breathing exercises I was making connections to my personal image of meditation. Before this class my definition of meditation would have been sitting cross-legged in an empty room chanting or something. But now my perspective on meditation has changed. I now see meditation as a calming tool to center yourself and be able to focus on little things around you.  During yoga class I specifically jumped back to the day in class where Dr. Davis mentioned how in more advanced yoga they were focusing on moving the smallest arch in their foot and how much concentration and focus that took. So while in yoga I took his advice and started focusing on my breathing and relaxing of my body and slowly I began to feel calmer than I expected. I think I got so involved with thinking about those little things I zoned out from what we were actually doing in the class. I am really glad I took this yoga class after taking our Philosophy class because I feel like I wouldn’t have gotten as much insight into the actual benefits of meditation if I had not had an open mind about it from class. I think I'm definitely going to try yoga again.