By Rachael Rettner

Karampal Kaur (R) teaches a yoga class in the Englewood neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois, August 13, 2014. REUTERS/Jim Young

A growing number of kids and adults in the United States are practicing yoga, according to new results from a government survey.

Over the last decade, the percentage of U.S. adults who said they practiced yoga increased from 5.1 percent in 2002 to 9.5 percent in 2012, according to the survey, which was conducted by the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 2012, about 21 million adults practiced yoga, which is nearly double the number of people practicing in 2002, the researchers said.

Yoga among children is also on the rise: the percentage of children ages 4 to 17 who do yoga increased from 2.3 percent in 2007 to 3.1 percent in 2012, which translates to about 400,000 more kids practicing yoga.

Part of the reason for the rise may be the increase in the number of yoga studios and instructors that has occurred in recent years, making yoga more accessible to a larger number of people, the researchers said.

In addition, there are now more studies suggesting that certain mind-and-body practices, such as yoga, can help people manage pain and reduce their stress, the researchers said. [Best Yoga Apps]

"The survey data suggest that consumers are paying attention to medical evidence and using it to inform their decisions, Dr. Josephine P. Briggs, director of the NIHs National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, said in a statement.

Overall, about one-third (34 percent) of adults and 11.6 percent of children used some form of complementary medicine in 2012, according to the survey. Complementary medicine involves treatments that are outside of mainstream medical practice, and that are not always proven to affect people's health. Although sometimes called "alternative medicine," studies have found that these treatments, for the most part, "are not used as an alternative instead of proven therapies, but as a complement to conventional care," Briggs said.

The most popular type of complementary medicine in the survey was taking dietary supplements, besides vitamins or minerals; they were used by about 18 percent of adults and 5 percent of children.

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Yoga becoming more popular with kids, adults