Yoga (alternative medicine)
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Yoga when used as a form of alternative medicine is a combination of breathing exercises, physical postures, and meditation, practiced for over 5,000 years.
| Yoga | |
| This article is part of the branches of CAM series. | |
| CAM Classifications | |
| NCCAM: | Mind-Body Intervention |
| Modality: | Usually Group, but sometimes Self-care |
| Culture: | Eastern |
| |
In India, yoga is a daily part of life. It is common to see people performing yoga in the morning or speaking about food diets and body therapy entirely based on Yoga or the Hindu healing system of Ayurveda.
A [survey released in May 2004] by the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine focused on who used (CAM), what was used, and why it was used in the United States by adults age 18 years and over during 2002. According to this recent survey, Yoga was the 5th most commonly used CAM therapy (2.8%) in the United States during 2002 (See CDC Advance Data Report #343 below, table 1 on page 8) when all use of prayer was excluded. Yoga is considered a mind-body intervention that is used to reduce the health effects of generalized stress.
Overview
Yoga is believed to calm the nervous system and balance the body, mind, and spirit. It is thought by its practitioners to prevent specific diseases and maladies by keeping the energy meridians (see acupuncture) open and life energy (qi) flowing. Yoga is usually performed in classes, sessions are conducted at least once a week and for approximately 45 minutes. Yoga has been used to lower blood pressure, reduce stress, and improve coordination, flexibility, concentration, sleep, and digestion. It has also been used as supplementary therapy for such diverse conditions as cancer, diabetes, asthma, AIDS (see CDC Advance Data Report #343 below, page 19.), and Irritable Bowel Syndrome (Van Vorous, 2001).Yoga and Breast Cancer Patients
In 2006, scientists at the University Of Texas conducted an experiment on 61 breast cancer patients. They took 30 of those patients and put them through a 6-week yoga program. At the end of those six weeks, they found that the patients that went through the yoga program felt much better about themselves, and were not as tired during the day.[link]Hatha yoga
In The West, hatha yoga has become popular as a purely physical exercise regimen divorced of its original purpose. Currently, it is estimated that about 30 million Americans and about 5 million of Europeans practice a form of hatha yoga. But it is still followed in a manner consistent with tradition throughout the Indian subcontinent. The traditional guru-student relationship that exists without sanction from organized institutions, and which gave rise to all the great yogins who made way into international consciousness in the 20th century, has been maintained in Indian, Nepalese and some Tibetan circles. The word Yoga and the official source of Yoga lore is stemming from India. Yoga as a word stems from the Sanskrit verbal root ‘yuj’ and indicates the verb to ‘to yoke’ or ‘to unite’. The transliteration form Sanskrit into Chinese is the following: →瑜伽→用賀. The meaning yoke as used on oxen is closely related, but also the same root gives us "join", "junction", "junta", "adjust", "joust", and "juxapose" to name a few. As such we can see a close resemblance in meaning to the Chinese concept of Taiji, which’s meaning could be stretched to indicate polarisation within a unity, but it is by no means identical to Taiji. That the meaning is not identical can be easily deduced when we compare Chinese practices and Indian practices of physical and mental or emotional purification. The only thing that maybe could be seen as identical is the recognized need for discipline and continuity in practice. Yoga connotates the process of yoking or fusing individual consciousness and awareness with the Vedantic, Hindu or Buddhist concept of Brahman Atman which is nowadays commonly equated with God, the divine or in a mixture of Jungian and New-Age sense with super-conscious awareness, but with which is intended a sort of natural state of mind, or of the soul in unision with the divine. As a practice Yoga is a kind of purification as to reach liberation of obscuring qualities present within mind and body. These obscurities according to Indian tradition are obscuring our recognition of origination in the divine and are therefore close in meaning to the content of European systems of thought such as Platonism and Christianity. In China Yogic practices have become successfully integrated within the systems of Buddhism ofcourse, but also within a variety of Daoist practices. Wudang Xiqi yoga is an example of this. The purpose of these practices and their application are not Indian in that case, but have become fully Daoist. Xiqi Yoga is based on dantian breathing practices and seek a particular application of clarity and strength, that is different from the seeking of enlightenment in normal Hatha or bodily Yoga practices.See also
- Yoga
- Hatha yoga
- Power yoga (Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga)
- Tsa lung Trul khor
- Yoga as exercise
- Five Tibetan Rites
- Chair Yoga
- Wudang Xiqi Yoga [wudang yoga courses]
- Yogatherapy
References
- Barnes P, Powell-Griner E, McFann K, Nahin R. CDC Advance Data Report #343. Complementary and Alternative Medicine Use Among Adults: United States, 2002. May 27, 2004. [Online]
- *On page 20 this report states: "All material appearing in this report is in the public domain and may be reproduced or copied without permission; citation as to source,however, is appreciated."
- Van Vorous, Heather. First Year: IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome), ISBN 1569245479. Yoga chapter excerpted with author's permission at [Help For Irritable Bowel Syndrome] (see Yoga for IBS section).
- Dr Bernard AURIOL,(fr) La yogathérapie de groupe, Indications et contre-indications d'une nouvelle technique somato-psychique, Service de Psychiatrie, CHD, Montauban; (in french, with english abstract) Psychother. Psychosom. 20: 162-168 (1972)
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