Good for You: Yoga

little yogini, originally uploaded by hlkljgk.

Soooo, I've been rather quiet lately. Sorry. No internet access. Once my home phone is sorted I will be back in action, but for today's post, we have a guest post from Danielle Grilli. She is the content director of Rvita.com, and contacted me asking to do a guest post. Hell yeah, I said, I am not up to much, so go for it! I like that RVita quotes actual studies, not hearsay, so I can use the info from their site to offer my students proven benefits.

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If I tried to count all the reasons why I’ve been doing yoga for 15-plus years, I think I’d probably lose track around about a thousand. I mean, yoga makes us FEEL good right? It makes our bodies feel tall and strong; it’s great exercise, and there’s no denying the small pride we all feel when manage to pull off some incredible feat of balance or strength or movement. It’s an evolution that, once you embrace, unfolds and unfolds before you in a seemingly endless journey towards…I’m not sure where, but it’s got to be good.

Any long-time lover of yoga knows well enough that yoga is curative inside and out. With roots in an ancient system of healing, an Indian philosophy borne from the desire to unify the body, mind, and spirit; yoga lays a path toward physical and emotional well-being. But how effective is yoga really? What do the scientific trials say? What can those who have never experienced yoga first hand expect from the practice and how can it be used as a treatment for various physical and emotional conditions?

Although many CAM (Complementary and Alternative Medicine) treatments have the disadvantage of being “clinically neglected”, yoga is an exception to the rule. In fact, over there years there have been hundreds and hundreds of reputable scientific trials which have touted the benefits of yoga. As a result, cumulative data tells us that there is “good scientific evidence” that yoga can be effective in the treatment of anxiety, stress, asthma, depression, heart disease, high blood pressure, OCD, schizophrenia, epilepsy and ADHD. Additionally, it has been suggested that yoga might be beneficial to those who suffer from fatigue, diabetes and reduced lung function among other chronic health conditions. To date, I don’t believe that there have been any scientific trials that have shown that yoga is a BAD thing to do although, as we all know, it’s important to watch yourself to prevent injury.

In the end it appears that yoga doesn’t just makes us FEEL better, it actually makes us better, healthier and stronger - inside and out.