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Yoga´s Real Benefits
June 12, 2007 at 12:10 PM
"Yoga can lessen anxiety, heighten concentration and improve motivation in as little as eight weeks," according to the press release about a research project presented recently at the annual meeting of the American College of Sports Medicine. This suggested that yoga could help improve the performance of athletes.
But according to Amy Wheeler, who co-authored the study with Traci A. Statler, both instructors at California State University San Bernardino, the greatest benefits of yoga come primarily from meditation.
"Yoga is simply a preparation for meditation," said Wheeler, who also is yoga director at Lake Arrowhead Resort and Spa near Los Angeles. "You do postures to get yourself into a state of mind to meditate. While westerners tend to regard yoga primarily as a physical discipline, in the East it is pursued as a mindful discipline that helps people live their lives with clarity and a positive outlook."
"As you move from young adulthood, you would evolve from a posture-based practice to a more meditation-based practice," she said. "In youth, you do more vigorous poses. In old age, you might sit in a chair and transition directly into meditation."
Wheeler began to investigate the use of yoga in sports when she was a sports consultant for five Olympic teams.
"As I was helping to improve the performance of these athletes, I started thinking of the ancient yoga texts," Wheeler said. "I thought, if yoga can help regular people, it can help athletes too."
She found support in the ancient yoga texts for her theory that yoga could alleviate anxiety, increase concentration and improve motivation.
"Those three things are mentioned in the ancient yoga sutras of Patanjali," she said. "In the 8-limb path of yoga, the fifth limb is concentration. The text says that long, slow exhalation can reduce anxiety, and that if you practice yoga regularly you will have more positive outlook. To me that means you are motivated."
Patanjali also said that "yoga is the cessation of the fluctuations of the mind," which sounds like a prescription for better concentration.
To test this theory, Wheeler and Statler created questionnaires designed to measure concentration, motivation and anxiety level, and had 84 students fill them out during the second and eighth weeks of a 10-week yoga course.
"We were surprised by the degree of difference in just eight weeks of practice," said Statler, the lead author of the research paper. "We measured significant increases in all three areas."
While Wheeler believes that yoga can help everyone, she cautions people against embracing the physical component without the meditation.
"If you did all yoga postures and breathing techniques without meditation, you probably would leave agitated," she said. "If you did all the same postures without the mental focus, it would just be gymnastics or calisthenics, which wouldn't necessarily decrease your anxiety or improve your concentration and motivation."
Incorporating the mental aspect of yoga, however, makes the practice ideal for people as they get older.
"One of the reasons I feel yoga is particularly wonderful for aging people is that it doesn't have to be very vigorous," Wheeler said. "People can be in a wheel chair doing arm lifts with deep breathing. You could lie in a hospital bed and do yoga."
To learn more about the type of yoga that Wheeler teaches, go to www.khyf.net.
Tom Valeo - St. Petersburg Times