Testing Yoga

Yoga is becoming increasingly popular in the Western world as a treatment for both body and mind. As it comes more and more into favour it also draws the attention of science which seeks to “prove” within its own set of parameters that yoga will work. You might that think that a few thousand years of evidence would carry some weight but that will science support what millions of people have discovered?

Yoga faces many challenges in being accepted by the orthodox medical community as a treatment for conditions from diabetes to psychiatric imbalance. You can’t put yoga in a pill and the practice of yoga will always vary a little from person to person. Some objections might be overcome however, if what yoga does to the body can be measured in terms that orthodox medicine will acknowledge. So a group of researchers recently completed a series of studies on yoga.

In one trial yoga was compared to exercise and a placebo group as a treatment for schizophrenia. Yoga proved superior to both treatments.

In another study chanting “OM” was found to produce deactivation of the limbic system in the brain. People with anxiety and depression have increased activity in the limbic system so yoga should help although a direct benefit of yoga in these conditions has not yet been clinically proven.

In a study on people with depression, the Sudarshan Kriya form of yoga was found to increase the amplitude of brain electrical potential and return it to the levels found in “healthy” people. The hormone cortisol, a marker of stress, was also lowered by yoga and corresponded to a reduction in depressive symptoms.

These studies are but the tip of the iceberg in terms of research being done into what yoga can do to your body and mind. It’s nice that science and a few millennia of empirical evidence are coming together to verify the power of this mind and body discipline.