Celebrities who do yoga: Meghan Markle, Justin Timberlake, Miley Cyrus, Gwyneth Paltrow and 7 more A-listers who swear by yoga for staying cool, calm and collected in tough times

Jan 24 , 2021

Justin Timberlake, Hilaria Baldwin and Meghan Markle all find their inner zen with yoga. Photos: Reuters; BANG Showbiz; AFP

It’s clear that yoga is beneficial for the body, mind and soul. Just 20 minutes per day practising this ancient form of exercise can have a monumental effect on our stress and energy levels. So it’s no wonder yoga has proved popular with overworked and over-tired celebrities. These stars are dedicated yogis and won’t travel anywhere without their mats …

Miranda Kerr

The former Victoria’s Secret model is a firm believer in daily yoga. Kerr prefers to follow the principles of Kundalini yoga, which she first discovered at home at the Dharma Shala yoga centre in Bondi Beach Australia when she was 18. On her blog, the catwalk star wrote: “Through my almost two decades of practising, I’ve found that it’s helped me develop a deeper mind/body connection, and having a daily practice has helped me remain grounded and calm despite outside noise or stress. It’s also allowed me to build and appreciate a stronger bond with myself and my loved ones.”

Russell Brand

British comedian Russell Brand is also a dedicated Kundalini follower and believes that it has helped him stay sober and avoid alcoholism and drug use. In addition, Brand regularly devotes himself to mindfulness exercises and meditates a lot in order to curb his fears and stress. The actor once posted a video to his YouTube channel titled “This is How Yoga Changed My Life!” in which he discussed how his practice helped him. He said: “For me, what it has done is it’s served as a way of helping me to live without the kind of physical intensity that different aspects of addition I have suffered from provided.”

Miley Cyrus

The Wrecking Ball singer is a yogi through and through. She practises a form of yoga called Ashtanga, which consists of a fast-paced sequence of movements synchronised with the breath. It is one of the most active styles of yoga and can help improve not just physical health but also mental health, as Miley is often open about.

She wrote on Instagram: “I surrender back on the floor feeling it’s [sic] grounding nature/properties … if you can take even 10 seconds to feel the weight of gravity and think of someone or something you are thankful for! Gratitude is the cure for stress.”

Gwyneth Paltrow

Six days a week, Goop founder Gwyneth wakes up at 4.30am to practice yoga. Speaking about her daily ritual, she said: “Yoga has completely changed me. I try to do it every day, and the effect is amazing. It’s not just during the hours that I’m practising. It’s about how it filters through into the rest of my life.”

In 2018, Paltrow even made the bold claim that she popularised the activity, when she told WSJ Magazine: “I went to do a yoga class in LA recently and the 22-year-old girl behind the counter was like, ‘Have you ever done yoga before?’ And literally I turned to my friend, and I was like, ‘You have this job because I’ve done yoga before.’”

Jessica Biel and Justin Timberlake

No doubt bendy couple Justin Timberlake and Jessica Biel. Photo: Reuters

The famous couple reportedly hop onto their yoga mats several times per week to do something positive for their health. Biel has been practising for more than a decade and has big goals to make the discipline even more mainstream. She told the Gaiam yoga blog: “At first I felt like, ‘I can’t do all those crazy poses,’ and I still can’t, but I’m not competing with anyone. I want to demystify yoga and bring it out to more women and men in the community, where it doesn’t have to be intimidating.”

Meghan Markle

Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, is lucky enough to have a yoga instructor for a mother – no wonder she enjoys the practice. Photo: AFP

As the child of a yoga instructor, Meghan Markle was destined to be a yogi herself. She did breathing and stretching exercises from the age of seven, but it was not until she was a student that the former Suits actress discovered her passion for yoga. She told Best Health in 2019: “I was very resistant as a kid, but [my mother] said, ‘Flower, you will find your practice – just give it time.’ In college, I started doing it more regularly. Now, I change it up: I’ll do yoga a couple times a week – hot yoga, specifically.”

Adam Levine

Adam Levine has been practising yoga for many years. At Maroon 5 concerts he even has an extra room he can withdraw to, to find his centre before performances. The musician’s devotion to the discipline has helped him find inner peace. He told Men’s Health magazine: “I have a hard time sitting still. I can be all over the map. Yoga has given me the ability to be more focused and make better decisions that come from a clear place.”

Sting

The Police frontman and his wife Trudie Styler are avid students of Jivamukti and Ashtanga yoga styles. But for Sting, yoga is much more than a workout, he has also integrated the philosophy of yoga into his life to improve his well-being and loves the progress he makes, saying previously in Cosmopolitan: “I can do things with my body now that I wouldn’t even have thought of doing when I was an athlete, a teenager. So that keeps me going. This is something I want to keep doing.”

Jessica Alba

The Dark Angel star uses yoga to keep fit and combines the discipline with weights, explaining to Byrdie: “I do like hot yoga classes, if it’s done at a good pace. I prefer it mixed in with light weights, so like a sculpting hot yoga class. I’ll always work out with a friend because it’s more fun.” Alba is also teaching her kids to join in. Last year, she posted a video of herself and daughter Haven doing a flow session on Instagram.

Hilaria Baldwin

Alec Baldwin’s wife opened her own yoga studio, named Yoga Vida, in West Village, New York, after she graduated from university, where she taught 36 hours of classes per week. Now, twelve years later, she is a renowned yoga teacher and a sought-after expert in the wellness industry.

Hilaria practises yoga to heal from her eating disorder and perfectionism, telling LA Yoga: “It was so liberating, to feel that I could just enjoy myself. Yoga practice is not to impress other people. It was a contrast with dance; yoga is about feeling from the inside out to create the form. It is the feeling that creates the posture, the purpose is the feeling.”

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Fame and celebrity

Meghan Markle learned it from her yogi mum, Miley Cyrus says it helps her mental health and Maroon 5’s Adam Levine claims it improves his decision making abilities: 11 celebrities on the reasons they love yoga