Yoga Articles

Whoever isn’t focused on capturing Baby Boomers over the next two decades isn’t focused well on the future. In the coming 20 years, boomers will inherit estates worth over 10 trillion dollars—that’s more than the value of the entire New York Stock Exchange today. And every year, 4 million Boomers turn 50 and 4 million turn 60. So what does this huge, affluent, aging populati...

Although those who offer classes that fuse yoga or Pilates with other modalities expect these types of sessions to grow, so far they have not taken off. Pilates and yoga remain independent activities. This section of the article is still in the process of conversion to the web....

A new pilot study offers hope that yogic meditation may benefit patients with epilepsy. Doctors who care for these patients continue to seek new treatment approaches for several reasons: Antiseizure drugs have strong side effects. Many patients become nonresponsive to drug therapy over time. Uncontrolled seizures are extremely disruptive to the perso...

Practicing yoga postures, meditation and breathing exercises can help women with breast cancer to enjoy greater functional fitness and to feel better about their health, according to findings from a small study presented at the 2006 annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology. “The women who practiced yoga reported better physical functioning, such as the ability to ...

It’s early days yet, but more corporations are adopting yoga programs to help employees cope with stress and be more active in the workplace. Large organizations such as IBM, Nike and Apple now offer yoga training. One New York City entrepreneur, Bruce Van Horn, has developed business-friendly classes with creatively described postures such as “opening bell” and &ldq...

A 12-week yoga program was more effective than conventional exercise or a self-help program for improving function and reducing chronic low-back pain, according to research published in the Annals of Internal Medicine (2005; 143 [12], 849–56). Scientists at the Cente...

Leading cardiologists, including Dean Ornish, MD, have helped increase the popularity of yoga by touting its ability to assist in preventing and managing heart disease. Now investigators at the Center for the Study of Complementary and Alternative Therapies at the ...

Research on yoga shows encouraging evidence of its value as a treatment for obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), based on a review of existing studies on yoga and anxiety disorders. The review was conducted by investigators from the School of Integrated Health at the University o...

People in midlife who regularly practice yoga are less likely to gain weight than those who do not practice yoga, according to a study published in the July–August issue of Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine (2005; 11 [4], 28–33). Researchers from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle studied 15,550 adults ages 53–57 years from 2...

The Bikram Yoga case settled out of court in May 2005, avoiding a federal court hearing to determine whether Bikram Choudhury’s copyrighted sequence of 26 poses and two breathing exercises could be legally protected. The case involved Open Source Yoga Unity, an organization based in San Francisco, California, and Choudhury, based in Beverly Hills, California. While details o...