Medical documentation on the Benefits of Yoga

Hi. I am currently teaching 2 yoga classes a week. To better promote these classes, I am in the process of going to physician's, chiropractors and physical therapists to let them know about the extra gentle classes I teach.

I am composing a letter to leave with each of them along with a flyer for the classes and some free passes for their patients. I could use the help of my fellow yoga teachers for this letter. I feel that having one or two medically documented references about the benefits of yoga would be useful for this population of health care providers. If any of you have a few quotes and the sources where they appeared as to the benefits of yoga for relaxation, stress relief, etc. that appeared in medical/scientific studies, I would be most grateful.

Also if anyone else has addressed these types of professionals to enlist them in referring their patients to your classes and could offer any advice or ideas as to what worked, I could use that feedback.

Blessings, Donna

ANSWERS:

From Jill Lawrence, grad. 2000:

One of my students found this on the web and sent it to me... Effects of Hatha Yoga Practice on the Health-Related Aspects of Physical Fitness. Tran MD, Holly RG, Lashbrook J, Amsterdam EA. department of Exercise Science, University of California at Davis, Davis, CA 95616.

Ten healthy, untrained volunteers (nine females and one male), ranging in age from 18-27 years, were studied to determine the effects of hatha yoga practice on the health-related aspects of physical fitness, including muscular strength and endurance, flexibility, cardiorespiratory fitness, body composition, and pulmonary function. Subjects were required to attend a minimum of two yoga classes per week for a total of 8 weeks. Each yoga session consisted of 10 minutes of pranayamas (breath-control exercises), 15 minutes of dynamic warm-up exercises, 50 minutes of asanas (yoga postures), and 10 minutes of supine relaxation in savasana (corpse pose). The subjects were evaluated before and after the 8-week training program. Isokinetic muscular strength for elbow extension, elbow flexion, and knee extension increased by 31%, 19%, and 28% (p<0.05), respectively, whereas isometric muscular endurance for knee flexion increased 57% (p<0.01). Ankle flexibility, shoulder elevation, trunk extension, and trunk flexion increased. PMID: 11832673 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]

From Susan Hayes, grad. 1999:

Dear Donna:

First, because I'm in the middle of reading it, I'd like to recommend the new book, Meditation as Medicine, by Dharma Singh Khalsa, M.D., for fairly recent evidence of the medical benefits of meditation. He focuses on Kundalini, of course, because that's his shtick, and he cites mostly TM studies, because TM is so well-funded that it conducts lots of studies; nevertheless, it's a very good, readable book.

The Feb/March 1997 issue of Yoga International magazine published an article on yoga and mainstream medicine (now probably outdated) called "Hospitals Make Room for Yoga." It's okay. If you can't get it from YI or from it's website, let me know and I'll fax/mail you a copy.

Dr. Peter Van Houten at Ananda has lots of medical information on how meditation affects the neural pathways in the brain and alters our behavior. He recently recommended that we look at a website: www.sciencedaily.com, for recent studies re: meditation (sub-site, "brain").

I'm thinking there must be lots of other websites providing updated research studies on yoga and meditation, but I couldn't find anything in YogaFinders.com or OneSpirit.com. Gyandev might know. I confess, I'm not a great surfer of the web. I'm thinking that I used to know a website with articles about yoga and medicine, but I can't remember what it was. I also can't find an article I once read in a yoga magazine a few years back about the Yoga Therapy Centre in England, which has as its goal the research and publication of studies on the therapeutic benefits of yoga. They have a research center in India, too.

I briefly looked at www.brainconnection.com http://www.brainconnection.com, which has good articles on meditation research; but I didn't find any articles specifically about yoga. Maybe Lennie Martin, the teacher of anatomy and physiology for AYTT at The Expanding Light, might be able to find medical documentation of yoga's effect on the body. You should have her e-mail address in your AYTT manual. If not, let me know.

There are some good medical references in back of a couple of yoga books: Relax & Renew by Judith Lasater and The New Yoga for People Over 50 by Suza Francina. Also, Savitri has lots of quotes on the medical benefits of meditation in the course manual we received in Meditation Teacher Training.

I would love to see a copy of the brochure you eventually put together to hand out to physicians, so I can use it, too!

Good luck! Susan Hayes

From Beth Howard, Cheyenne, WY, grad. 2001:

Hi Donna,

I am currently working with a psychologist to create a support group, Tools for HealingA Group for People with Illness or Chronic Pain. Meditation and yoga are included. We have gathered some supporting quotes, articles, etc. I will add them below. Consider sending letters to psychologists and/or social workers as well. I have had referrals from these professionals for my regular yoga classes.

"Clinical studies over the years have shown the effectiveness of interventions on a wide range of medical problems caused or made worse by stress, such as hypertension, cardiac, pain ... Practicing the relaxation response daily can boost the immune system.." Herbert Benson, M.D. Harvard Medical School

Research studies published in the New England Journal of Medicine and Cancer Journal support yoga's capacity to relieve the pain and insomnia that plague people with life-threatening illnesses.

"Medical researchers in the US have been studying meditation for more than 35 years...The ancient technique has been shown to aid in the treatment of conditions as varied as cancer, sleep disorders, headaches, chronic pain, high blood pressure, and aging." Yoga Journal

Studies by Jon Kabat-Zinn, PhD., and others at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center have found that mindfulness meditation can benefit people with chronic pain and anxiety disorders. In addition, research shows that regular meditation practice can help fibromyalgia, irritable bowel syndrome, and PMS.

Among the fundamental issues that predispose us to disease and affect our healing is our estrangement from ourselves and others. Physician-researchers are now emphasizing this dimension as a key aspect of coping with illness.

Dr. Dean Ornish has written about various forms of isolation, including the disconnection from our very own being. Yoga and meditation begin to break down the distance from ourselves and bring us into closer contact with our sensations and feelings. Knowing how our bodies really feel, we can notice when we are stressed and can make decisions about our activities and our attitudes that can change our relationship to our healing.

I hope that this is helpful to you. I am a Jan. 2001 AYTT graduate and am currently teaching five classes and one private lesson a week. The AYSutra has been very helpful to me...and sometimes has prepared me for my future. I recently taught a class to grade school children in a behavior disorder program in the public schools. I am also teaching a class weekly for teens in a support group for substance abuse issues, through the county mental health center. The postings recently on these ages/topics were very informative and helpful to me and came just in time. Thanks to all who ask the questions and to those who answer and especially to all at The Expanding Light for making the forum possible.

Blessings & Many Thanks, Beth

From Donna O'Neil, grad. 1995:

Donna,

I'm sure you'll get plenty of responses along these lines: Get Nischala Joy Devi's book, The Healing Path of Yoga. She does the Yoga of the Heart program at The Expanding Light (also a 3-day weekend "The Healing Path of Yoga" -- both are Level 2 AYTT courses) for teaching to cardiac patients, and used to work with the Dean Ornish Lifestyle studies for people with heart disease. They are well-documented studies showing how yoga and meditation have helped reverse heart disease.

Respectfully,

Donna O'Neil

From Ann Francis, grad. 2002:

Hello Donna,

There was a long article in Yoga Journal's 2001 Annual Guide, called "Yoga under the microscope". It featured several doctors who have tried to get scientific proof that yoga is beneficial. The article is ok. One doctor focused on transcendental meditation. One successfully showed yoga can help relieve carpal tunnel, and another showed it could help people with asthma. If you don't have access to this magazine, I'd be willing to copy it for you and send it to you. Sounds like you want citations from the research paper itself, which this isn't. I don't know how useful it will be, but you can be the judge. If you send me your address, I'll mail a copy of the article to you.

Blessings to you, and best of luck in your quest for information,

Ann Francis