Yoga is a way of life that includes ethical precepts, dietary prescriptions, and physical exercise. Its practitioners have long known that their discipline has the capacity to alter mental and bodily responses normally thought to be far beyond a person’s ability to modulate them. During the past 80 years, health professionals in India and the West have begun to investigate the therapeutic potential of yoga. To date, thousands of research studies have been undertaken and have shown that with the practice of yoga a person can, indeed, learn to control such physiologic parameters as blood pressure, heart rate, respiratory function, metabolic rate, skin resistance, brain waves, body temperature, and many other bodily functions.

Regular yogic meditation also has been shown to reduce anxiety levels; cause the heart to work more efficiently and decrease respiratory rate; lower blood pressure and alter brain waves; increase communication between the right and left brain; reduce cholesterol levels (when used with diet and exercise); help people stop smoking; and successfully treat arthritis.

Adapted from Alternative Medicine: Expanding Medical Horizons, a report prepared under the auspices of the Workshop on Alternative Medicine, held in Chantilly VA on September 14-16, 1992.

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