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Mind Body Spirit

Somatic Yoga Breathing

As our journey through life progresses, we often become more aware of the dance between two sides of us: Our habitual self in which lives all the sleights, hurts, disappointments, and frustrations we experience in our lives.

At the same, in our quiet moments, we may connect with what we might call our big S Self - that part in which feelings like forgiveness, love, compassion and joy reside.

We much prefer to spend most of our time in that big S Self. But it's not easy!

We don't get there by simply deciding to be there - that only lasts a minute or two. That big Self awareness is a feeling that must infuse our entire being to be genuine, authentic, and true.

Two things can help us reconnect with our "better half," or our best self as it is often called.

One is keeping perspective. As Rumi reminds us in the quote above, in the all too short span of our lifetime, what is really worth focusing on? From that perspective, the teaching to not plant anything but love makes perfect sense.

Perspective and mental attitude can only get us so far, however. We also need a physiology that supports the greater equanimity, and calmness where feelings of love and giving dominate our awareness.

And, you probably guessed, one way to help create this kind of balance in body and mind is yoga. In this newsletter, we offer a series of articles with tips to help introduce the ease, calm and equanimity that tends to bring out the best in us.

Somatic yoga teacher James Knight offers a video with a soothing somatic flow to bring you more present in the moment. Dr. Ray Long takes a closer look at diaphragmatic, yogic breathing and offers a video practice to help you get it right.

Olga Kabel writes on the power of nitric oxide to enhance health and well-being, and how simple breathing practices can help increase levels of this important compound.

Finally, Dr. Timothy McCall shares his insights into how to practice Bhramari Pranayama (Bees Breath) - one of the most soothing and accessible breath practices in yoga.

On the YogaUOnline side, we are very pleased to welcome back Gentle Somatic Yoga founder James Knight, who is back by popular demand to teach another livestream series - this time on Awaken the Possible: A Heart-Guided Journey of Transformation through Gentle Somatic Yoga.

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What is Mindfulness....Really

What is Mindfulness? It’s Not Just Being in the Moment
October 6, 2024 Charlotte Bell
 
 
 
Mindfulness has long since become a household word. The practice has made the cover of TIME twice and even has its very own magazine, Mindful, with articles touting the its benefits, including stress management, trauma relief, alleviation of chronic pain, and a general sense of contentment.

But what exactly is mindfulness? Most people would agree that it entails “being in the moment.” This is true. You can’t be mindful if you are dwelling in the past or the future. But you can be in the moment and not necessarily be mindful. For example, from the mid-’70s to the mid-’90s, I attended a whole lot of Grateful Dead shows. While I was dancing to the Dead, I was totally in the moment, but I wouldn’t say I was mindful.

Knowing That We’re Knowing
 

What takes us from simply being in the moment to being mindful is the observing power of the mind. Mindfulness requires that we know what is arising in the moment. When we are mindful, we are aware that we are aware.

For example, if you’ve ever sat down to meditate, you probably noticed that thoughts are present pretty much all the time. This is, in fact, one of the first insights people have when they begin to practice, just how much the mind is being pulled to and fro by memories, plans, worries, fantasies, etc. The knowing aspect of mindfulness allows us to be aware that thinking is happening and to tune into the actual energetic phenomenon that is a thought, rather than becoming lost, and then often reactive, to the stories our thoughts are telling us.

Mindfulness teaches us to ask the question: What is a thought? This is different from being absorbed in the content of our thoughts. With mindfulness, we can explore thinking itself as a phenomenon. When we observe the thinking process, what we often discover is that thoughts are insubstantial, energetic blips that come and go, just like sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and sensations. Their only power is the power we give them.

One of my favorite quotes from mindfulness teacher and author Joseph Goldstein is: “The thought of your mother is not your mother. It’s just a thought.” I use this quote as a mantra when I’m getting caught up in obsessive thinking. It reminds me of the insubstantial nature of thoughts and helps me to unhook from the stories they tell.

Seeing the Filters and Mindfulness
So this knowing quality is an essential part of mindfulness. But there’s more. We can be observing what’s arising and passing in each moment, but still, be unaware of filters that are present. These filters—wanting, aversion, and delusion—obscure our ability to see clearly. They also cause us to identify with what’s happening and then to become reactive.

In general, when our present experience is pleasant, we want to draw it in; we want more. We want it to stay and try to make it stay. When our present experience is unpleasant, we want it to go away, so we try to push it away. When our present experience is neither pleasant nor unpleasant, we can space out and lose presence.

 

These filters are unconscious, so they operate without our knowledge unless we are mindful of them. When we’re not aware of filters, our reactions to what’s happening in a given moment can lead us to unskillful actions. Being aware of these filters is an important part of mindfulness. We can observe thoughts and sensations in the moment, but if we don’t see the filters, we’ll have an agenda. So mindfulness is not simply recognizing what’s arising; it’s also recognizing our reactions to what is arising.

How do we know when we’re not practicing this aspect of mindfulness? Struggle is a reliable clue. When we struggle in our meditation practice, it’s an indication that we are in a state of recognition, but not a state of mindfulness. Struggle can be a “mindfulness bell.” It tells us that there’s something happening that we’re not accepting. Mindfulness requires that we be open to what is present without responding with greed, aversion, or delusion. So being aware of unconscious filters is a crucial link to reaping the benefits of practice.

Ever since hearing mindfulness explained this way by Joseph Goldstein on a retreat a few years ago, this is my template for practice: being in the moment, knowing what is arising in the moment, and exploring what filters, if any, are present. It’s more work than simply being in the moment, but this framework has sharpened both my practice and my daily life mindfulness—after 30 years of practice.

I’ve heard Goldstein say many times that it doesn’t matter what is happening in our experience. What matters is our response to what is happening. This is true in our meditation practice and in our lives. We all experience pleasure and pain, gain and loss. The only thing we can control is how we respond.

This is the power of mindfulness. It gives us tools that can help us live our lives with greater equanimity. Mindfulness will not protect us from life’s ups and downs. But when we practice seeing clearly, without filters, we can navigate the ebb and flow of our lives with grace.

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Break throughs in yoga

Any long-term practitioner can tell you about the ups and downs of their yoga practice. Often they made lots of quick gains or experienced rapid change in their first few years of practice. But then the pace of change slowed down. Maybe some months, or even a couple of years went by when it felt like nothing was really changing. They seemed to be struggling with the same postures day in and day out, until one day, suddenly the posture they’d been wrestling with for years happened for the first time. What changed? In this article, we’ll explore the answer to that question. Why does change sometimes happen after a long plateau in yoga? Read on to explore some of the reasons this might happen.

This article was prompted by a question that I received from a student. They asked:
“Why does it seem like the practice gets harder (and sometimes we even “lose progress”) right before we see a breakthrough or big improvement in the practice? It seems like the growth moments are always preceded by really frustrating slides backward.”

This student asks a good question. There’s both a physiological and a philosophical answer to this question of why change often seems to follow a plateau in yoga. Since yoganatomy.com is about yoga and anatomy, we’ll explore both.

Let’s start with the physiological answer.

The physiological part
Current sports science research describes a particular way that change happens when we challenge our body. Research indicates that in order to create change we have to repeatedly challenge our system within a reasonable range that doesn’t result in injury or ask us to do more than we can recover from. And then it takes our body some recovery time to integrate the new level of effort that we challenged our body to do. What’s interesting is that the change actually happens during the recovery phase of our training, not during the phase where we’re making the harder effort. That’s true whether we’re taxing our muscles to lift more weight or stressing our cardio system trying to run faster. That process isn’t linear. It’s three steps forward, and then one step back.

A plateau in yoga might be integration
Research that studied training blocks for sports like cycling or running that train particular aspects of the sport, like short sprints up a hill for example, has documented that the changes to our physiology don’t happen for the most part during the initial challenges to our body. They happen after we’ve repeated those challenges for some period of time and then allowed our body to rest and recover. So, what you imagine to be a plateau in yoga, may in fact be the span of time when your body is integrating the new activity.

Additionally, sometimes the answer is that what we experience as a plateau in yoga is actually just very slow change. We have to take into account that the body and context that we’re practicing with are different every day. If we’re tired from a busy workweek and feeling less strong in our arm balances because of it, for example, it doesn’t mean that we’re going backward in strength. To really assess whether we’re getting stronger in a particular pose or movement, we need to look at change over some months (or in the case of some poses, years) to be able to average out the daily ups and downs and see the arc of change.

The philosophical part
While the physiological changes that we experience when we do new physical activities are part of the answer to the question of progress in yoga, this is yoga, so of course, physiology isn’t the whole answer. So now let’s explore the philosophical side of the answer to this question.

One of my favorite ways to teach is to answer student questions with another question. This gets them thinking a little bit deeper, and sometimes it points them in the direction of realizing they already knew the answer to their own question. So let’s start with a few questions. Several questions live underneath the question the student posed in their email.

What does a plateau in yoga mean?
These are some questions that come to my mind when I consider the student’s question about why a breakthrough often happens after a plateau in yoga:

What does it mean to “progress” in yoga?
Do we need to progress at all?
What does it mean to hit a plateau in yoga?
Why do we have an assumption that progress is linear?
Why do we have an assumption that progress in yoga is doing deeper or more challenging postures?
When we age and inevitably have to start giving some postures back, are we not still progressing in the sense of learning and growing in our yoga practice?


What constitutes a big breakthrough or a big improvement in the practice? Is it only doing a more complex posture or going more deeply into a posture?


What would happen if you stayed in what you see as a plateau in yoga and you didn’t regularly experience physical change? Would you get bored with yoga? Would you think it was the fault of the style or teacher and then seek out a different style or a different teacher?
Many if not most of these questions may not have an answer or may have many answers, all of which are true.

Is yoga only about progress in postures?
In contemporary postural yoga in the West, there’s often a strong emphasis on the health and wellness benefits, particularly using yoga to increase flexibility, strength, balance, and other body-related achievements. But that definitely isn’t all that yoga is, or even necessarily what’s central to the experience of yoga, particularly for longer-term practitioners.

Progress in yoga is non-linear
Because we are using our body as our object of concentration, we’re tracking our physical experience. But that doesn’t mean there is a right way for anyone’s yoga practice to unfold. Sometimes when we think we’re on a plateau in yoga, change is happening, but in a non-linear way. Every day is different. Some days your energy is up. Other days maybe you’re tired or distracted. Taking the variability into account means that progress in yoga is rarely a straight line.

Look for the subtler aspects of yoga practice
What can also be true is that sometimes we’re just looking for something shiny rather than looking more closely at the level of details evolving all around us. If we have an idea that progress in yoga means doing more complicated postures or always going deeper in a pose, then whenever we don’t have that experience we might think we’re not progressing. But yoga is more than postures of course. Particularly as we age, what keeps us interested in our yoga practice may be different. We may find we need to direct our focus more onto our breath or our concentration to notice the subtle changes from day to day in our practice.

Relax your grip
Additionally, sometimes our mental outlook can be related to how change occurs in our practice. If we’re pushing too hard, or holding too tightly to a desired result, we can sometimes get in our own way. Softening our approach and relaxing our grip on our desired results can sometimes open the door to unexpected observations when we think we’re on a plateau in yoga.

Try a new approach
Finally, sometimes what’s missing is a piece of technique or a different approach. In that case, sometimes what happens is that we stop looking for a change for a while, so we think it still isn’t possible. Then one day, something (a teacher, a workshop, etc.) convinces us to try something a little bit different and we find that something we thought wasn’t possible was possible after all.

An example of this that I see with students in my workshops is reaching the hand to the floor in revolved side angle. When students first start practicing, everything may not be open enough to get the torso and shoulder close enough to their thigh for their hand to reach the floor. So, I’ll see students make a modification that makes sense for that moment, like reaching their hand to a block instead of the floor for example. But if the block becomes a habit, and they never take the block away and just look to see if their hand is getting closer to the floor, then of course they’ll never know that they’ve progressed in that way until someone suggests they try the pose without the block and see what happens.

Conclusion
There are many reasons that we might experience a plateau in yoga. Letting go of having a specific result in practice each day, focusing on other aspects of practice like the breath, and considering a new approach to a posture all have the potential to create new insights. Additionally, sometimes change is happening in our practice. It’s just slower than we can observe or our body is still integrating the new information.

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How Often Should I Practice Yoga?

Weekly frequency of yoga may be enough to offer some benefits
Research Study At A Glance
The Research Question Asked
Is a weekly frequency of yoga practice enough to have beneficial health and wellness effects?

Type of Study
Clinical trial

Study Participants (Sample)
Total sample included 82 participants (49 participants in yoga group; 33 people in control)

Mean age was 22 ± 3.83 years
All participants were female
No participants had prior yoga experience
Methods
Researchers measured aspects of balance, flexibility, strength, body composition, and physiology for both a yoga treatment group and a control group who did no yoga. Yoga participants completed one 90-minute yoga class once per week for 10 weeks. Researchers collected measurements from both groups one week before the start of the study and one week after they completed the study.

Results
Some measurements of balance, torso stability, and flexibility positively increased after ten weeks of weekly yoga practice.

Conclusion
A weekly frequency of yoga for ten weeks positively affected some aspects of balance, abdominal strength, and flexibility for beginning yoga participants, but had no effect on other wellness metrics.

 
 
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Background
Yoga is a very popular movement activity with a wide variety of physical and psychological health and wellness benefits. Research supports yoga’s positive impacts on strength, flexibility, balance, reduced stress, and increased general psychological well-being among other benefits. However, compared to other health and wellness research topics, exploring yoga’s benefits in a research context is fairly recent. This means that, from a research perspective, we’re still learning what specific effects yoga has.

As researchers complete more studies evaluating yoga’s effects, the research community has suggested there are ways that yoga-related studies could provide more valuable information. For example, many yoga research studies have not included specific information about what the yoga treatment consisted of. Yoga styles are highly variable in their intensity, intentions, and emphasis. Additionally, yoga classes and interventions vary in their duration and weekly frequency. This makes it difficult to generalize what the effects of yoga are.

It makes sense that a variable like the frequency of weekly yoga practice would potentially impact what effects the practice has. Classically, the yoga texts all recommend a consistent daily practice. Our research study here at yoganatomy.com supports the idea that participants experience greater benefits from a consistent practice of five or more days per week. However, contemporary yoga is often done within the context of a class, and there are many potential barriers to attending a yoga class daily. Family and work commitments may not leave time for daily yoga. Additionally, the cost of classes and the time required to travel to a studio can prevent attending daily classes.

The research study we summarize in this article was particularly interested in the question of the effects of practice frequency on yoga’s benefits. Specifically, they wondered whether attending classes on only a weekly frequency would still have benefits for practitioners. Since it’s very common for yoga participants to attend yoga classes only once per week, the researchers’ question about the relationship between a weekly frequency of yoga and its effects is a very relevant one. Keep reading to find out more about what they learned.

Research question
Is a weekly frequency of yoga practice enough to have beneficial health and wellness effects?

Research methods
The research team recruited a group of healthy females with no previous yoga experience for their study. Participants elected to participate in either the yoga group or the control group. There were 49 participants in the yoga group with an average age of 21.49 ± 2.3 years old. There were 33 participants in the control group with an average age of 22.75 ± 5.32 years old.

The yoga group participated in yoga classes once per week for 10 weeks. The yoga classes were beginner-level Hatha yoga style of class. Each class was 90 minutes long. Each yoga session included a breath and body awareness practice, postures from all major categories of asanas, and ended with relaxation. The control group did no yoga.

The researchers took measurements from both the yoga and control groups at two points during the study. They collected baseline measurements one week before the yoga study began. They took final measurements one week after the yoga study was completed. The only exception to that was the measurements for the plank test to evaluate abdominal muscle strength. Those measurements were taken for only the yoga group at the beginning of the first and last yoga class.

Measurements for all study participants (yoga group and control) included:

Body mass index
Body weight
Body fat percentage
Static balance measured with the one-leg-stand stork test
Static balance was also measured with the functional reach test
Flexibility measured with the side bend test
Flexibility was also measured with the modified sit and reach test
Heart rate
Heart rate variability
Calories consumed
Results
The results of the one-leg-stand test with open eyes, the side bend test, and the sit and reach test all increased in the yoga group after the 10-week yoga program, but decreased in the control group.
Abdominal muscle strength as measured by the plank test increased in yoga participants from baseline to after the 10-week yoga program.
There were no effects of the 10-week yoga program on body mass index, body fat percentage, one-leg-stand test with closed eyes, functional reach test, resting heart rate, or heart rate variability.
Why is this relevant to yoga practitioners?
While many of us may set the intention to do a consistent daily yoga practice as recommended by the sutras, the reality is we are busy people with many responsibilities and obligations on our time. In trying to balance our life between family, work, friends, hobbies, and fitness goals, we can easily overschedule ourselves. And increasing our sense of being overwhelmed with commitments is definitely not the purpose of yoga. So this research study that examines the effects of weekly frequency of yoga speaks to the vast majority of yoga participants who do yoga alongside many other things.

Attending a once-a-week yoga class is common for many yoga participants who are balancing their interest in yoga with other activities. Examining the effects of a weekly frequency of yoga adds important information for those who want to know what the benefits might be compared to a more frequent yoga practice. It allows yoga participants to make a more informed decision about how often they want to practice yoga. It also helps provide realistic expectations for what kinds of benefits weekly yoga might provide compared to a more frequent practice.

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Vagus Nerve, Yoga and Cancer...how are they all related?

 
 
What gives people greater resilience in the face of life-threatening illnesses like cancer? Researchers now believe that vagal nerve activity may contribute to enhanced health and longer life expectancy for individuals with cancer, as well as to enhanced cardiac health and increased resistance against dementia.

What Is The Vagus Nerve?
The vagus nerve is an integral part of the parasympathetic nervous system – the branch of the autonomic nervous system responsible for rest, growth, and repair. Recent studies have linked higher levels of vagus nerve activity, as measured by greater heart rate variability (HF-HRV), with longer survival rates in patients with myocardial infarction and acute trauma and in those undergoing palliative care.

The research suggests that vagal nerve activity may also predict survival in patients with metastatic or recurrent breast cancer more reliably than cancer stage alone.  To date, cancer prognoses have largely been determined by tumor stage, age, genetic expression, inflammatory parameters, and organ functioning.

The Relationship Of Yoga, The Vagus Nerve, And Cancer Cell Growth
 

Increasingly, studies are pointing to mindfulness practices like yoga and meditation as stimulating vagus nerve activity. If higher levels of vagus nerve activation influence the progression of advanced-stage cancer, it is possible that such practices may moderate the impact of cancer cell growth and increase life expectancy for those with advanced-stage cancer. Obviously, future studies would be needed to support this proposition.

The activity of the vagus nerve is often referred to as vagal tone. It has been proposed that high vagal tone may slow down tumor growth because it inhibits mechanisms responsible for tumor progression, including oxidative stress, inflammation, and excessive sympathetic nervous system (SNS) activation. In addition, the vagus nerve also innervates major visceral organs where many cancers develop, including the lungs, gut, pancreas, and colon.

Vagal tone is assessed by measuring respiratory sinus arrhythmia. Respiratory sinus arrhythmia refers to the rhythmic increase and decrease in heart rate that occurs synchronously with breathing. During inhalation, heart rate increases (sympathetic nervous system influence), and vagal influence decreases. During exhalation, however, heart rate decreases as vagus influence increases (parasympathetic nervous system activation). Higher respiratory sinus arrhythmia variability levels indicate greater vagal tone, reflecting the body’s ability to respond to increasing metabolic demands and environmental challenges.

Vagal Tone Moderates Tumor Growth In Advance Stage Prostate And Colon Cancer Patients
Vagal tone has been of increasing interest to clinical scientists interested in examining cancer progression because of its relationship to autonomic nervous system function and its innervation of many visceral organs. In one study, researchers in Belgium examined the medical records of 72 individuals with colorectal cancer and 113 individuals with prostate cancer, all of whom had undergone an electrocardiogram (ECG) assessment earlier in their care. ECG provides a measure of respiratory sinus arrhythmia.  They also examined markers of tumor growth i,ncluding Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA) at 6 6-monthollow-up for those with prostate cancer and carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) for those with colorectal cancer.

For individuals with prostate cancer, the cancer stage, ranging from 1 (a small tumor that has not spread deeply to adjacent tissue) to 4 (metastatic cancer), predicted higher PSA levels at 6-month follow-up but only for individuals with low vagal tone (low HRV). These findings remained the same even after accounting for the effects of age and treatment.

Similarly, the stage of cancer significantly predicted levels of CEA one year later for those with colorectal cancer,  but only in those with low HRV, even after controlling for the effects of age and treatment. Taken together, this means that higher vagal tone was related to lower tumor burden (size of tumor or number of cancer cells in the body) for those with metastatic cancer.

This study is one of the first of its kind to demonstrate the potential moderating factor of vagal tone as measured using HRV in the progression of both prostate and colorectal cancer. The authors suggest that vagal tone should be considered as a potential resiliency factor when determining a cancer prognosis, particularly for those with advanced-stage cancer.

These findings are consistent with other research that finds that people with high vagal nerve activity rebound more quickly from acute stress by showing a more rapid return to baseline levels of inflammatory, endocrine, and cardiovascular function than those with low HRV.

Vagal Tone May Influence Progression Of Advanced Stage Breast Cancer
In another study, an international team of researchers set out to examine the relationship between vagal tone and survival rates in 87 women with metastatic and recurrent breast cancer.  During a follow-up period of 7-8 years, participants with high resting HRV had a median survival rate of 34.9% at 37 months, whereas those with low HRV had a mortality rate of 50%. This suggests that women with a high vagal tone may have higher survival rates than those with low vagal activity.

The study’s authors pointed to several possible explanations for this finding. First, they proposed that high HRV may be a marker of the “inflammatory reflex,” in which the vagus nerve informs the brain about tumors and modulates them via feedback to the neuroendocrine and immune systems.

Another possibility is that high vagal activity is linked to self-regulation of emotion and social activity, which may be related to higher breast cancer treatment adherence. Higher vagal activity may also be linked to lower depression and higher levels of social support. Recent investigations find that individuals with higher vagal tone are more resilient to stress, which may be particularly important when undergoing cancer treatment.

Taken together, these studies suggest that high vagal activity may serve as a protective factor that increases survival latency for men and women with prostate, colorectal, and breast cancer. Mindfulness practices like yoga and meditation decrease sympathetic activity, increase parasympathetic dominance, and may stimulate vagal activation. As such, these practices may enhance longevity and quality of life for those diagnosed with cancer. Future studies will be needed to support this proposition.

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Yoga and Depression

Is yoga research coming of age? An increasing number of studies now document the positive effects of yoga on depression. While early research reported on one study at a time, there is not a growing body of research reviews and meta-analyses now on the benefits of yoga for depression. These are types of studies that look at the benefits of yoga for depression and anxiety not just in one study, but summarized across a larger group of studies.

This was the case for a 2023 review and meta-analysis of 34 studies on the effects of yoga suffering from major depression disorder. Also referred to as clincial depression, major depressive disorder is characterized by a persistent low and depressed mood, feelings of worthlessness, disturbed sleep, difficulty concentrating, loss of appetite, and more.

The review study looked at the results of 35 randomized control trials on people suffering from clinical depression. The total number of people included 1,269 patients in the treatment groups and 1,072 in the control groups.

Across all the studies, the review found that yoga can indeed improve depressive symptoms and anxiety in patients with major depressive disorder. It also found that yoga was safe for this audience and widely accepted by participants.

Just as interesting, a much larger study, published in the prestigious British Medical Journal in 2024 looked at the benfits of yoga and other types of exercise over 218 unique studies with a total of 495 arms and 14,170 participants.

Compared with active controls (eg, usual care, placebo tablet), reductions in depression were found for several types of exercise, including yoga, walking or jogging, strength training, mixed aerobic exercises, and tai chi or qigong. According to the study, strength training and yoga appeared to be the best tolerated modalities, and benefits increased with the degree of intensity.

The meta-analysis concluded that exercise is an effective treatment for depression, with walking or jogging, yoga, and strength training more effective than other exercises. Exercise was equally beneficial for people with or without other health issues as well as participants with different levels of depression

Importantly, when it comes to yoga, the benefits for depression appears to be cumulative over time. A 2017-study, published in Psychological Medicine found no difference in the yoga group at the 10-week mark. However, after 6 months, over half of the participants in the weekly yoga classes group experienced a minimum 50% reduction in their depressive symptoms. They also reported both improved social functioning and overall health. The yoga participants showed fewer depression symptoms over the entire 3-6 month follow-up period.

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fascia and yoga

Exciting new findings into the nature of fascia, the connective tissue of the body, make it abundantly clear that we cannot think of the body as a collection of parts.

Every part of the body is an interwoven wholeness, interconnected through the body-wide network of the fascia.

Quite frankly, this is mind-blowing. It means that our physical body is not just a collection of muscles, organs and bones. It is an interconnected wholeness in which everything impacts everything else.

Yet, for the most part, our approaches to fitness and self-care are still stuck in an old, outdated, linear model of the body. We may be stretching and strengthening our muscles on a regular basis, but we do so in a linear fashion, without reference to the fact that muscles don't function in linear planes.

 

This is why yoga is so beneficial for preventing injuries and cultivating good health.

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Can Yoga Help Increase Balance in Aging Men?

Yoga may improve both static and dynamic balance in elderly men

The Research Question Asked
Does yoga improve balance in elderly men?

Type of Study
Randomized control trial with a pre-test, post-test design

Study Participants (Sample)
Sample size included 234 total participants

All participants were men
Median age: 72 ± 7.7 years
Methods
Researchers assigned participants to either a yoga group or a control group. All participants completed an overall health assessment and a balance assessment before and after the study period. The yoga group completed a 4-week yoga intervention during the study, while the control group participated in regular exercise classes.

Results
Yoga positively influenced body fat composition, muscle mass, emotional quality of life, and both static and dynamic balance in elderly men.

Conclusion
Yoga improved balance and other health measures in elderly men.

 

Background
Good balance is one key to feeling confident when staying active for older people. Naturally, as we age, we experience challenges to our stability and dexterity. We get dryer, stiffer, have slower reflexes, and often experience changes to our gait. The combination of those things and other aging-related issues can lead to an increased likelihood of falling. And among older folks, a simple trip and fall incident can have serious consequences.

Fear of falling can lead older people to stop doing many activities and types of exercise. But regular movement is important, particularly in later life, for supporting and maintaining many aspects of physical health. Staying active is also important for mental health. Additionally, movement activities are one way we stay connected to our communities. Feeling confident in our balance is an important part of feeling safe and motivated to stay active.

One activity that has been linked to improving balance is yoga. However, many studies on yoga’s effects have only looked at its effects on women. So in the study we summarize here, a research team chose to examine yoga’s effects on balance in elderly men.

Research question
Does yoga improve balance in elderly men?

Research methods
A total of 234 men participated in this research study. Researchers randomly assigned participants to either a yoga treatment group or a control group. There were 122 participants in the yoga treatment group and 112 participants in the control group. The mean age of those in the yoga treatment group was 72.8±7.4 years. The mean age of those in the control group was 72.2±6.5 years.

Both groups participated in several pre-study measurements. Researchers assessed overall health with a medical assessment called an anamnesis, an assessment of body composition, and the RAND 36 Short Form Health Survey. They specifically assessed the pre-treatment balance of all participants using the Tinetti Balance Assessment Tool.

After the pre-treatment measurements were taken, the yoga treatment group participated in a 4-week yoga intervention. The system of yoga used was Yoga in Daily Life. The yoga intervention included in-person classes once per week for 90 minutes with an instructor. The yoga treatment group was divided into smaller groups of 10-12 participants for the weekly in-person classes. Each weekly in-person class also included a psychologically inspiring motto incorporated into the class. Additionally, the yoga treatment group received a sheet with instructions for a short (5-10 minutes) daily home yoga practice routine. The control group took their regular exercise class at their senior center.

Results
Yoga positively influenced body composition, quality of life, and balance in elderly men. Both body fat composition and muscle mass changed during the treatment period for the yoga group. Body fat decreased in the yoga group compared to pre-intervention measurements. However, body fat in the control group increased. Muscle mass increased in the yoga treatment group compared to pre-treatment measurements, but there was no change in muscle mass in the control group participants.

Aspects of health-related quality of life also changed positively for the yoga intervention group during the study period. The yoga group increased their ability for health-related self-care according to the RAND Health Survey. Additionally, in the yoga participant group, yoga practice was positively associated with changes in emotional well-being. Yoga participants improved RAND Health Survey scores indicating that emotional problems limited their activities less and distracted them from concentrating less.

The main interest of the research team, the influence of yoga on balance in elderly men, was positively affected. Both static and dynamic balance improved over the study period compared to pre-intervention measurements. Additionally, both types of balance improved in the yoga group when compared to the control group.


 
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Why is this relevant to yoga practitioners?
The physical benefits are one thing that draws practitioners to yoga. Although the physical experience is only one aspect of yoga, our physical health is also intimately related to our mental health. And that may be especially true as we age. Tools like yoga can help us maintain functional movement in our older years. Feeling confident in aspects of our functional movement, like our balance, can support positive mental health by making it more likely that we stay engaged in activities and with our community. And, although yoga may currently attract more women than men, it has the potential to benefit everyone.

Conclusion
Although aging is inevitable, we have some control over how we age. Staying engaged with activities that we enjoy is a critical part of maintaining both our mental and physical health. Feeling confident in our ability to move contributes to our likelihood that we’ll keep doing the things we love. And feeling confident in our balance is one part of that. Based on the research that we summarize here, a yoga practice may help elderly men maintain better balance in their later years.

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studies and conclusions

Background
Many types of chronic disorders do not have fully effective treatments within Western medicine. Metabolic disorders, autoimmune dysfunction, heart disease, as well as mental health issues like anxiety and depression often have only partially effective treatments in Western medicine. For that reason, medical professionals are interested in the effects of alternative and complementary therapies like yoga.

Previous yoga research has been applied to a wide range of disorders. That research reported benefits of yoga on issues such as immune system function, cardiovascular system function, muscle strength and flexibility, and mental health issues like anxiety, depression, and stress. Due to the nature of conducting research with human subjects, sample sizes and other factors often limit the conclusions we can make from individual studies on the effects of yoga. However, when we combine many smaller studies we can see trends that we might not see otherwise. The research paper we highlight in this article summarizes all the research done on yoga and health and wellness in 2020.

Research question
What were the benefits of yoga on health and wellness issues in research studies published in 2020?

Research methods
To find studies to include in their review, researchers searched the PubMed database for all studies published in 2020 with any of the following keywords: yoga, meditation, asana, pranayama, yogic breathing, or dhyana. They then evaluated all the studies that turned up in their search. They included published articles in their review if they covered a clinical trial that used yoga asana, pranayama, or meditation as their intervention, and if the paper was published in 2020. In total, they found 46 articles that met their criteria and included those papers in their review.

Results
Mental health
Eight studies were published in 2020 that examined the effects of yoga on aspects of mental health. And, multiple studies found benefits of yoga for mental health issues. Those included improvements in anxiety, depression, stress, and sleep quality after yoga treatments. Other mental health-related studies showed an association between yoga and positive body image, improved PMS symptoms, and reduced cigarette cravings in those trying to quit smoking.

Neuropsychology
Six studies were published in 2020 that explored the association between yoga and neuropsychological functioning. Studies reported various positive effects associated with yoga, including improved visual working memory, improvements in balance, gait, and joint flexion in Parkinson’s patients, and increased GABA levels in depression patients.

Cardiovascular health
There were eight studies published in 2020 that examined associations between yoga practice and cardiovascular health. The studies found a number of positive associations with yoga. Some of those included: increased walking distance, increased anaerobic threshold, positive effects on cardiac rehabilitation and respiratory function, and increased blood pressure and heart rate variability of hypertension patients.

Other health issues
Additional studies conducted in 2020 evaluated the benefits of yoga on various other health issues. Those varied from examining yoga’s effects on creativity to cancer, HIV, type-2 diabetes, restless leg syndrome, rheumatoid arthritis, and others. Some positive effects of yoga included reduced blood pressure, body mass index, and markers of oxidative stress in type-2 diabetes patients. Other positive effects included increased attention, memory, divergent thinking, and physical health aspects like increased muscle strength, flexibility, and balance, as well as positive effects on symptoms of restless leg syndrome, rheumatoid arthritis, and metabolic syndrome.

Why is this relevant to yoga practitioners?
Those of us who are long-term practitioners of yoga already know that we feel better when we do our practice. Anecdotally you, or your students if you’re a teacher, probably notice many positive health-related impacts on your life that you attribute to your yoga practice. Research review papers like the one we highlight in this article tell us more specifically how yoga practice impacts our health. One of the most interesting findings from this review was the benefits of yoga on so many different systems in our body. It shows that yoga really does affect the whole person.

Conclusion
Yoga research has covered a wide variety of health-related disorders in the past couple of decades. The review paper we highlight here summarizes only studies published in 2020. Among those studies, yoga positively affected a diverse group of chronic health disorders.

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