The Health Benefits of Yoga

After the birth of my daughter I took up yoga to help with getting back in shape and to reduce my stress levels.  No one really tells you how hard it can be at times raising a child and I found some real peace of mind in my yoga classes. Yoga is one of the oldest known health practices in the world and studies have shown that it helps with reducing stress, lowers blood pressure, regulates the heart rate and even slows down the aging process! 

Yoga is a subset of Ayurvedic medicine and is a system of psychophysical exercises designed to integrate the physical, mental and spiritual energies that enhance health and well-being. There are hundreds of well-designed studies of meditation and yoga that demonstrates the effectiveness of yoga to help reduce stress and anxiety levels as well as lower blood pressure and heart rates. I have found that yoga helps me to manage my pre-diabetes and Dr. Mary Pullig Schatz wrote in her book Back Care Basics of a young diabetic woman who was able to substantially decrease her insulin dependency after beginning the practice of yoga. (Source: Alternative Medicine.)

Harvard University neuroscientists Sat Bir Khalsa is studying the healing power of yoga and spends his days interpreting data and writing grant proposals, contacting study volunteers and traveling around the world for speaking engagements.  Yoga is the center of his life and work.  Every morning he practices two-and-a-half hours of Kundalini Yoga.  The reason he took the job at Harvard was to be near the largest Kundalini Yoga center in New England.  He has made it his life mission to document the benefits of this ancient practice. (Source: Yoga Journal May 2010).

Khalsa’s vision is to see yoga be offered in schools, hospitals and even the military.  But he realizes to do this he needs to have tangible results from a sizeable number of studies.  Kelly McGonigal is a yoga teacher and health psychologist at the School of Medicine at Stanford University and says “The Western health care model looks at evidence-based medicine.”  (Source: Yoga Journal May 2010). Khalsa is determined to provide a large body of hard evidence that will provide an opportunity for yoga to become a go-to alternative for health issues such as stress and anxiety disorders.  Imagine if your doctor can prescribe yoga and have it paid for by health insurance!

With our health care costs rising every year it would be nice to see this ancient practice be part of our preventative health care system.  I have personally seen the benefits of yoga and plan to continue practicing well into my 80’s.

Have you tried yoga before?

References:

Burton Goldberg. Alternative Medicine – The Definitive Guide.2^nd Edition. Celestial Arts

Jennifer Barrett, “The Healing Power of Yoga”. Yoga Journal, May 2010

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