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Yoga as medicine changing traditional practices
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John Kepner, IAYT executive director
Yoga increasinlgy viewed as a progessive medical treatment
Yoga as medicine is an ancient concept given modern day credence by "credible, clinical trials that increasingly support what people have known forever," said Little Rock's John Kepner, executive director of the International Association of Yoga Therapists, "that yoga can provide real medical benefits such as relief for chronic lower back pain, depression, anxiety, heart disease and a host of other issues."
People have long accepted that yoga can soothe the stresses of daily demands. Little Rock internet entrepreneur, Aristotle CEO, Marla Johnson Norris, relies on yoga to stay focused and connected to the better part of herself, "It's hard to explain how important yoga is to me," said Norris, "the combination of movement and breath and mental focus is such a powerfully healing force."
Recent clinical trials suggest yoga offers benefits for a host of issues from asthma to aging, hypertension to happier pregnancies.
Heart disease reversed through yogic principles
What we are finding is that "a lifestyle that involves yogic principles can actually reverse heart disease," said Kepner, "moderate exercise and stress reduction, which yoga offers, along with a low fat diet, for many people is better than having their chest cracked open in surgery." A string of published studies found on the National Institutes of Health and PubMed websites point to the whole body benefits of yoga including:
- Reduction of hypertension (blood pressure) through slow, deliberate yogic breathing (Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, June17, 2009)
- Greater insulin sensitivity and reduced autonomic response in young males practicing yoga over a year; in short, that’s good news for the heart muscle
- Improved breathing with short-term yoga training for patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), a precursor to cardiac failure
Chronic lower back pain relief through yoga
The bane of so many people's existence is back pain. According to Kepner, "A clinical trial about four years ago showed that a carefully crafted sequence of yoga exercises for back care provided better back related function and less pain than conventional treatments, with conventional being either education about back care or a conventional exercise class for back care."
Depression and anxiety reduced or alleviated through yoga
This summer, the Harvard Mental Health Letter published an article showing yoga for anxiety and depression modulates the stress response. See https://www.health.harvard.edu/newsletters/Harvard_Mental_Health_Letter/2009/April/Yoga-for-anxiety-and-depression for more details.
Yoga: the original behavior medicine
When asked about anxiety and depression, Kepner compared yoga to the field of behavior medicine, also known as health psychology. "We have whole buildings dedicated to behavioral medicine," said Kepner, "yoga is the 'original' behavioral medicine. It's all about reducing suffering.
Of course, that's not unique to Yoga. Many traditions have the idea of saying 'let's just slow down, take a deep breath, think about what you are and want you want to do, and then act accordingly,' but it's just that yoga has lots of techniques for doing that, physical techniques, breathing techniques. If you say take a deep breath in yoga, well there are a lot breathing techniques, but what yoga does is put a whole lot of things together into a system that works.”
Yoga offers hope for a better night's sleep
Yet another study found significant mental and physical differences, including better sleep quality and a reduction in cortisol (stress hormone) levels in long-term yoga subjects.
Seniors discovering yoga to improve quality of life
Seniors given six months of gentle 'silver age' yoga exercises experienced better sleep quality, alertness and blood pressure with decreased depression. The overall health status of the older adults improved with ongoing participation. Perhaps, it's not surprising that studies hoping to aid Alzheimer's patients with yoga are happening even as this article is being written.
Is yoga a miracle?
It can feel like a miracle, "if a practical one," said Kepner, "for the person who is trying to cope with dying from cancer and needs to find a physical or spiritual outlet to cope with treatment; or for the woman who six years ago couldn't get up off the floor without a chair or stair to climb up on; who now rises up from the floor from a seated position without touching anything at all; to that person, now in her 70's, it is a kind of miracle."
Kepner cautioned, “Let’s be careful and not oversell the benefits of yoga. Much more research still needs to be done in accordance with modern research methods in order to better document health benefits. Also, there is a shortage of well-trained Yoga therapists. Yoga teachers need to be specially trained to work with students toward therapeutic goals.”
Yoga for a clear, focused mind and greater understanding of self
"Classical yoga, to paraphrase," said Kepner, "is about cultivating a clear, focused mind to help you understand yourself better. From that base you can act wiser and prevent or minimize future suffering. In addition, yoga provides breathing, stretching and strengthening exercises that could extend life but more certainly will improve the overall quality of life. Yoga allows you to begin getting better however and wherever you are at the moment you choose to begin."
"If I am tired, yoga can energize me,” said Norris, “If I am anxious, yoga can calm me. If I am sick, yoga can activate all my self-healing power and make me well. It keeps me young, relieving stress and connecting me to all that is good in the world."
J Altern Complement Med. 2009 Jun 17. [Epub ahead of print]
Natl Med J India. 2008 Sep-Oct;21(5):217-21.
Tex Heart Inst J. 1993;20(3):198-212.
J Cardiopulm Rehabil Prev. 2009 Mar-Apr;29(2):133-7.
Annuls Internal Med. 2005 Dec; (143): 849-856 American College of Physicians
Biol Psychol. 2009 Jul;81(3):164-8. Epub 2009 Apr 1.
Complement Ther Clin Pract. 2009 May;15(2):102-4. Epub 2009 Mar 20.
Harv Ment Health Lett. 2009 Apr;25(10):4-5. No abstract available.
School of Nursing, Fooyin University; 151 Chin-Hsueh Rd., Taliao Township, Kaohsiung 831 Taiwan.
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