Help Heal Yourself With Yoga

Yoga also may help prevent or manage cardiovascular disease, according to Kim "Karen" E. Innes, MSPH, PhD, an associate professor at The Center for the Study of Complementary and Alternative Therapies, University of Virginia Health System in Charlottesville.

Yet you don't have to have a medical condition to reap gains from regular yoga sessions. "Yoga can improve physical function, balance and cardiopulmonary fitness in both healthy and chronically ill adults," Dr. Innes says.

Although the mechanisms underlying yoga's observed beneficial effects are not yet well understood, yoga likely influences health status in several ways, says Dr. Innes. For example, yoga may enhance both mental and physical health by effecting positive changes in emotional state, in nervous system balance and in brain chemistry and function, which in turn can lead to improvements in mood, sleep, physiological profiles and other measures of wellbeing. She adds that yoga can also lead to increased physical activity and overall fitness, promote social interaction (if taking classes), encourage healthy dietary choices and strengthen spiritual beliefs—all of which may directly or indirectly enhance and protect your health.

Less pain, more gain

Because yoga began in India thousands of years ago, doctors there are more accepting of its health benefits than are many in Western cultures. Mary Cosgrove, a human relations consultant and coach in Salt Lake City, faced resistance when she asked doctors about using yoga to help her heal from pain she suffered in a bike accident.

"My brakes locked up. I hit a post and fell," says Mary, who was 50 at the time of the accident. The crash twisted the nerves and bones in her pelvic girdle. "I couldn't sit for six months."

Mary underwent physical therapy and shots for the pain, with little positive effect. When she raised the possibility of trying yoga, she says, "I got a lot of push-back from my doctors." They were concerned that she would injure herself again—something that happened when she tried an "easy" aerobics class after the accident and ended up with plantar fasciitis, a heel pain problem.

Although her doctors didn't support the idea, Mary started going to a "restorative yoga" class, designed for people with health problems. "It was very gentle. You lay in a pose for a period of time," she says, explaining that foam blocks, bolsters and blankets were used to hold her body in the correct positions.

"It was like kindergarten nap time," she says, with a laugh. The poses enabled her to begin moving the injured area. "I slowly started to get better," she adds.