Stretch Toward Healing - As a way to treat illness- yoga's role

[papau]

Stretch Toward Healing - As a way to treat illness, yoga's role in U.S. medicine is
growing. The mind-body connection that it can create serves to heal the mind and spirit as well as the body, say proponents of therapeutic yoga.

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http://www.latimes.com/features/health/la-he-yogatherapy9aug09.story
Stretch toward healing
As a way to treat illness, yoga's role in U.S. medicine is growing.
By Jeannine Stein
Times Staff Writer

August 9, 2004

Meeting Eric Small, shaking his hand and looking into his eyes, one would never know he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis about 50 years ago. Photographs in his yoga studio show him in complex poses, the kind that take years of study to perfect.

Small's almost lifelong dedication to yoga has given him the stamina, strength and confidence, he says, to live medication-free. Now in his early 70s, he has symptoms of relapsing-remitting MS, including loss of vision, fatigue and occasional numbness. But he's also able to sustain a daily two-hour practice in addition to teaching — most notably others with MS, even some who must use wheelchairs.

This yoga niche, called therapeutic yoga, is not limited to people with MS. Such therapy incorporates poses (asanas), breathing (pranayama) and meditation techniques to improve quality of life and manage symptoms of various diseases, chronic conditions and illnesses — including asthma, back pain, fibromyalgia, depression and cancer.

Although conventional exercise — walking, bicycling — is recommended for many people with health problems, yoga goes a step further, say its proponents. The mind-body connection that yoga can create serves to heal the mind and spirit as well as the body, they say.<snip>

[sui generis]

1. I think there are some perks BUT

has anyone noticed that yoga practitioners get a kind of glazed look and always do their best to recruit? It is kind of cult like.

The funniest ones are the people who have just taken up yoga and feel compelled for some bizarre reason to show you that they can now stand on one leg and bend the other one back to touch the top of their head with it, while waiting in line at a restaurant. Oh there goes another one.

And then there's "yoga rage" -- all these little yogis running fighting for what side of the room they're going to use in class, or yelling at the new guy for not keeping up.

I see this every day at the gym - it's definitely a turnoff for me.

[flamingyouth]

4. Wow, that sounds like a horrible yoga experience to me

And yeah, I agree, like anything trendy, it's attracted its share of annoying people who are always trying to outdo one another, which is ridiculous to me. :hi:

[HysteryDiagnosis]

5. Flamingos

>>show you that they can now stand on one leg<< But they don't flaunt it. :)

[flamingyouth]

2. I'm a firm believer in yoga, personally

I'm training to become a teacher. In fact, I just had my first teachers' class this morning.:D And I'd eventually like to focus on therapeutic yoga, in conjunction with my future massage practice.

I started practicing yoga about 10 years ago, then after about five years, my mother became seriously ill, then I became ill after taking care of her almost around the clock. Long story short, I stopped going to my classes and keeping up my home practice.

All the old aches and pains that I'd pretty much forgotten about while I was practicing yoga slowly came back, and I ended up after a few years being in chronic pain. I just about tore up my digestive tract taking every NSAID on the market.

After a while, I figured, I should start doing yoga again, so I enrolled in a gentle class at first. Now I practice every day, take three classes per week and am studying to be a teacher. Aside from my migraines, I actually feel great - better than I did 10 years ago.

The breathing and meditation I have learned through my classes helped me greatly when I had a tragedy in my life recently. So I'm a huge proponent of yoga for everyone, regardless of body shape, age or anything.:hi:

[pagerbear]

6. I recently took a beginner's class

...theoretically designed for complete neophytes like me. I've shared before about having been overweight my entire life, much of that time morbidly obese, and then having lost a huge amount of weight. (Before pic here) I've always been afraid of any sort of physical activity, associating it on a non-rational level with 7th grade gym class and humiliation. I figured yoga would be a good introduction, a gentle way to become more active physically (aside from all the walking one does as a NYer).

I was a bit intimidated--the class was me and four or five women who seemed waiflike to me, most of whom seemed experienced. I did my best for three of the four classes, but it was a relief when work kept me from the fourth. I sort of felt like my best wasn't good enough at times. I know no one was judging me as harshly as I was, but it was still rough.

Having said that, though, I'm not going to give up. I'll keep going to beginners' classes.

[flamingyouth]

7. There is a really good book called "Yoga From the Inside Out"

That addresses what a lot of us have felt in classes like this. My favorite class is my Sunday morning one, which is filled with people of all shapes and sizes, just doing what we can. Of course, our teacher is wonderful, constantly reinforcing everyone and telling us how beautiful all of our poses are. This is the first time in my life that I, "Last-Picked Lisa," have ever been comfortable at all in any sort of physical pursuit.

Keep it up if it makes you feel good, and try to focus inward on your own many strengths and not on the others (I know, easier said than done).:hi:

[Southsideirish]

3. Thanks! I've already sent it on to several friends and family

members who have all manner of complaints from old age to cancer treatments (no energy.)

[pmbryant]

8. Don't know much about a "mind-body" connection...

but yoga is certainly very helpful for the body, in my limited experience.

Perhaps if I were more dedicated, I could speak more to the whole "mind-body connection" thing. I don't understand that part.

:shrug:

Peter