Part of the growing trend toward the use of complementary therapies in America, yoga is gaining increased acceptance in the medical community. Many hospitals now offer yoga therapy, and the practice is the subject of numerous research studies designed to test its therapeutic effects.

"Yoga is a form of complementary medicine that physicians can relate to," says Kathryn Arnold, editor-in-chief of the Berkeley, Calif.-based magazine Yoga Journal. Since yoga gets people physically active and "doesn't involve anything suspect, like herbs or devices," she notes, even skeptics tend to conclude that -- at the very least -- it does no harm.

Brought to the United States in the early part of the 20th century, yoga was introduced to many baby boomers when Swami Satchidananda taught the crowd to chat "om" at the Woodstock music festival in 1969. Today the ancient art is experiencing a renaissance, with an estimated 12 million Americans now practicing yoga, double the number of just five years ago. More doctors are practicing yoga, too, and more patients are asking their physicians about yoga's benefits.

"The defining moment when the medical community started taking notice of yoga occurred in 1990," says Arnold. That year, The Lancet published results of California physician Dean Ornish's research indicating that lifestyle changes -- including yoga-based stress management -- could reverse heart disease. A few Western studies published since then have suggested that yoga may be helpful in treating a variety of ailments including carpal tunnel syndrome, asthma, obsessive-compulsive disorder and substance abuse.