by Baxter
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| The Sick Doctor by Jehan Georges Vibert |
One strong motivator these days for starting a yoga practice
is all the publicity about the benefits of yoga for your health. Seems a week
doesn’t go by without some new study being published on the benefits of yoga
for this health issue or that serious illness. In a few upcoming posts, I plan
to address some of the more serious problems that yoga seems to be able to help with, but
today I thought I’d start with a genera post about some of the more common minor problems yoga can help
with. As Nina reported on a while back in Medical Conditions Benefitted by Yoga, our past blog contributor Dr. Timothy
McCall keeps an ongoing list of the conditions that yoga has been shown to help
with via scientific studies (see www.drmccall.com).
A quick perusal of Timothy’s list reveals a lot of fairly
serious conditions! Since I am interested today in common minor problems, let me state that in compiling my list, I am
assuming that the conditions I list are often inconvenient, uncomfortable and
potentially disruptive to daily life, and may carry a degree of seriousness for
those affected by them. But in their milder forms they are not usually
life-threatening or seriously debilitating. There are always exceptions, of
course.
My list includes some that you will find on Timothy’s list
and a few of my own, which I’ve gleaned from my years of experience working
with a wide variety of students.
Common Minor Problems Yoga Can Help With
- General body stiffness and body aches, non-specific
- Mild arthritis
- Mild muscle weakness from inactivity or general aging
- Poor balance, not associated with other serious illness
- Poor agility
- Morning stiffness associated with mild osteoarthritis
- Posture-related problems and kyphosis
- Mild back and neck pain
- Elbow pain
- Mild scoliosis
- Bunions, flat feet and overly high arches
- Pelvic floor health (including incontinence)
- Leg cramps
- Edema and varicose veins
- Restless Leg Syndrome
- Shingles
- Carpal Tunnel Syndrome
- Frozen shoulder
- Tinnitus
- Vertigo
- Costochondritis
- Hernia
- Minor injury recovery, for example, common ankle sprains
- Minor digestive issues, for example, mild Irritable Bowel
Syndrome - Menopause symptoms, such as, fatigue, hot flashes, joint problems, headaches, and frozen shoulder
- Common tension headaches
- Mild, infrequent migraine headaches
- Insomnia
- Mild anxiety
- Mild mood disturbances, for example, mild forms of Seasonal
Affective Disorder - Poor impulse control, for examples, around food or emotions
such as anger - Poor concentration, for example, in school age children
- Sinusitis
- Stress management
- Healthy pregnancy
- Post-operative orthopedic recovery, for example, meniscal
knee repair - Hemorrhoids
Now, I am certain that I have left a few things off that our
esteemed readership could chime in on! However, you get the drift that yoga can
be very helpful for a wide variety of common problems that we, our family and friends,
and our students (for the teachers out there) encounter each day.
For some of these conditions, the “why” is a bit harder to state exactly, as even in those
conditions studied by scientific means, the underlying reasons why yoga is
helpful is often merely hypothesis or theory yet to be proven. And that is not
the purpose of this post. But for those interested in knowing more about the “why,” Potential self-regulatory mechanisms of yoga for psychological health
is one example of researchers attempts to explain how yoga works for
psychological issues. It’s pretty heady stuff, but you will get the clear sense
that we still have a long way to go to understand “why” yoga works. However, we
all have had the distinct personal experience that yoga really does help with these
common minor conditions. I will update the list over time as I think of more
common minor problems yoga helps with come to me, and will add your suggestions
as well!
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My two students with Parkinson’s Disease say that they move more easily for 2 or 3 days after our chair yoga class.
That's great to hear! And I'm sure Baxter will write about Parkinson's Disease when he addresses serious medical conditions (Parkinson's is not a minor problem, unfortunately).