Yoga Research Article

Study: Yoga Offers Encouraging Mental Health Benefits

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Mental illness is a significant health concern worldwide, in spite of increasing improvements in treatment modalities and access to care. And, while the number of medications that are available for mental health disorders has been increasing, drugs are often very expensive, have significant side effects, and don’t necessarily offer the desired results.

In this environment, it is generally recognized that there is a need for safe, cost-effective forms of treatment for mental illness. A number of studies looking at the effects of yoga for people with mental health issues have shown promising preliminary results. But does the cumulative evidence across studies support the use of yoga to help offer relief for depression and other forms of mental illness? 

This was the question asked by a group of researchers at Duke University, who set out to examine the evidence across a number of studies for the usefulness of yoga for mental health disorders. 

To answer the question, the researchers conducted a review of studies on the mental health benefits of yoga. They initially looked at a pool of 124 studies, but only 16 studies met the rigorous criteria for final inclusion in the review. Specifically included were studies on the effects of yoga on depression [2], schizophrenia, ADHD, sleep complaints, eating disorders, and cognition problems. The study was published in the January 2013 issue of Frontiers of Psychiatry.

Across multiple studies, the review found, there is cumulative evidence for the usefulness of yoga as an adjunct modality in the treatment several mental health issues.

In particular, studies have consistently shown potential benefit for depression and for schizophrenia (as an adjunct to drugs treatments), as well as for sleep complaints and for children with ADHD.

 

The review also found that yoga may balance biochemical markers thought to play a role in mental health. One of the studies included indicated that a regular yoga asana practice affects neurotransmitters as well as markers of inflammation, oxidative stress, lipids, and growth factors. Other significant benefits noted above drug therapy were the absence of side effects, the low cost of practicing the postures, good accessibility, and general improvement of the patients’ level of fitness. 

 

Still, while results are promising, more rigorous research with larger groups is required, the researchers concluded. The studies revealed conflicting results for cognitive and eating disorders, and none of the existing studies looked at issues around primary and relapse prevention, or compared the effectiveness of yoga therapies versus drug therapies.

 

 

Source

Yoga on Our Minds: A Systematic Review of Yoga for Neuropsychiatric Disorders

Meera Balasubramaniam, Shirley Telles, and P. Murali Doraiswamy

Front Psychiatry. 2012; 3: 117. Published online 2013 January 25. 

Neck Safety

Forbidden Territory

While neck rolls and stretches can be great for calming stressed students, they're not safe for everyone.

By Julie Gudmestad

Photo by Christian Fagerlund

Have you ever polled your students to discover why they come to class? After all, they allocate the money and the time—perhaps the more precious commodity—to attend your classes. Some are coming for health benefits or fitness, some for improved flexibility, and some may even come for social connections. But I suspect you'll find that a significant number come to class for a respite from their high-stress lives, to experience relaxation and learn how to release tension from their muscles.
As their teacher, how do you incorporate relaxation, besides Savasana (Corpse Pose), into every class? Many studies, including biofeedback and other disciplines, have shown that relaxation of the muscles in the neck, jaws, and face can have powerful calming effects on the entire nervous system. Even gentle reminders to relax the jaws during asana practice can help. And there are many yoga poses that stretch the neck, inviting the neck muscles to let go and lengthen. However, not all neck positions are safe for all students, and a good teacher will exercise some caution when working with students' necks.

What Could Go Wrong?

There are two concerns to keep in mind when working with neck positioning in yoga. One is the blood circulation that moves from the heart to the brain via the neck, and the other is the structure of small facet joints and nerve pathways on the back of the neck. Impeding either the circulation to the brain or the nerve pathways from the neck can cause serious problems—lack of oxygen to the brain; and numbness, weakness, and pain down the arm caused by a compressed or "pinched" nerve in the neck. How do you help your students avoid these costly, potentially devastating injuries?
To understand the fundamentals of neck positioning in yoga, let's take a look at the structure of the cervical spine. The bodies of the vertebra are separated by the discs, and where each two vertebra overlap, there is a small facet joint on each side at the back. An arch of bone (the neural arch) projects from the back of each vertebral body. It surrounds and protects the spinal cord, and the nerves leave the spinal cord through the intervertebral foramen (holes between each two vertebrae) at the back edge of each disc. Problems arise when the cervical spine starts to develop "normal" degenerative changes—as early as the mid-thirties among today's Westerners—and the discs narrow and dry out, the little facet joints develop wear-and-tear arthritis, and the intervertebral foramen become smaller.
With these degenerative changes, in certain neck positions, the foramen (where the nerves exit the spine) become even smaller and can compress or pinch the nerve, causing pain, numbness, and weakness wherever that nerve travels to in the arm. These symptoms can be mild and temporary or severe and persistent, requiring medical treatment. And what are the risky neck positions? Neck hyperextension (hanging your head back, which opens the throat but compresses the back of the neck), especially if it's combined with pressure on the top of the head in poses such as Matsyasana (Fish Pose). Another is hyperextension combined with twisting or rotating the neck, as in neck rolls. These positions also compress the little facet joints on the back of the cervical vertebra, which can cause further damage to already degenerated cartilage surfaces.
Neck hyperextension can also impede the blood circulation to the brain. The brain receives blood from arteries in the front of the neck (the left and right carotids) and the back of the neck (the vertebral arteries). The vertebral arteries wind their way up through the back part of the cervical vertebrae and pool their blood with the carotids in the Circle of Willis, which distributes the blood throughout the brain. If the carotids are significantly blocked with arterial plaque—not uncommon in our society—and you hyperextend your neck, putting pressure on the vertebral arteries, blood circulation to the brain will be reduced. This can cause dizziness or even a temporary loss of consciousness, which can lead to a fall, with possible injuries from the impact.

What to Do about It

So what are the implications for yoga teachers? Unless you're teaching a class of teenagers and twenty-somethings, neck rolls are forbidden. Don't invite your students to hang their heads back in Virabhadrasana I (Warrior Pose I), Urdhva Mukha Svanasana(Upward-Facing Dog), or Ustrasana (Camel Pose) unless they have enough chest, shoulder, and upper-back flexibility to extend their necks without compression in the back of the neck. In other words, if the chest is dropped and you look up to the ceiling, the back of the skull presses down into the back of the neck. If you can lift your chest in these poses so the breastbone is nearly parallel to the ceiling, your head can hang back without compression. Try it yourself.
While teaching, challenge yourself to find new ways to invite neck relaxation without involving neck rolls or hyperextension. How about just hanging the head to one side, ear toward shoulder (keep shoulders level)? Then breathe and relax into the side neck stretch. Or simply drop the chin toward the chest (keep chest lifting up toward chin), and hold and relax into the back-of-neck stretch, which is also a great preparation forSarvangasana (Shoulder Stand). With a little creative thinking, you can help your students experience neck muscle relaxation in safe and comfortable positions.

Julie Gudmestad is a certified Iyengar Yoga teacher and licensed physical therapist who runs a combined yoga studio and physical therapy practice in Portland, Oregon. She enjoys integrating her Western medical knowledge with the healing powers of yoga to help make the wisdom of yoga accessible to all.

Return to http://www.yogajournal.com/for_teachers/2600

How To Teach Peace

How to Teach Peace

As teachers, we can heal our students' nervous systems by giving them concrete tools to cultivate peace on the mat.

By Aadil Palkhivala

The nervous system is our communicator with spirit, our connection with the inner world, and a gateway between the physical and spiritual. An agitated nervous system fails to receive the spirit's guidance, just as a warped antenna cannot receive television signals properly. That is why, in yoga and in life, we must protect the nervous system and ensure that it lives in a state of equanimity. Similarly, we must create an experience for our students that sooths, rather than irritates, their nerves.

The nervous system is a transmitter as well as receiver. It is an electrical system emitting powerful electro-magnetic waves and transmitting impulses that connect and harmonize all aspects of our being. The nervous system feels joy and sorrow and initiates laughter and tears. However, when agitated, it fumbles through its job, and so do we.

In our society, we are always being hurried along, running from one task to another like frustrated rats on an eternal treadmill. Our poor nerves rarely get a chance to rest or breathe. Yoga classes should be an antidote to this feverish fervor. They should give our students time to pause, feel, and tune in. Let us not reduce our classes to one more hectic episode in a student's day or one more unrelenting blur of intense activity.

When I first taught in America in 1980, I was astonished to see that many students would shut their eyes while doing asanas in an effort to relax. Yet, they would lie down in Savasana with their eyes wide open. When it was actually time to tune in to the trauma and tension in their nervous systems, they were afraid to face the demons within and could not let go. This highlights the challenge facing us as yoga teachers.

Doing is the state of moving toward something, of looking into the future. In contrast, feeling is the state of being in the moment. Peace comes from being completely present and feeling what is going in the now. But how do you create peace as a teacher?

During class, frequently remind your students to pause and feel what they are doing, and then use their breath to initiate their next move. When I get lost in a city and pull out a map, I first need to know where I am on that map to know how to proceed. In the same way, the student, to feel at peace in a pose, first needs to know where they are in their body. Ask your students to feel the weight in their heels or the pressure on their fingertips, and automatically their mind will go into a reflective state to observe what is going on inside. And any attempt to feel what is going on inside the body creates a mind-body connection, calming the nervous system, and fostering peace.

As your students pause after each pose, encourage them to bring awareness into their bodies and create equanimity in their minds before proceeding. Shutting the eyes creates calmness because the body responds by moving the nervous system from its active, sympathetic state to its quiet, parasympathetic state. Opening the eyes reverses that. Often during class, I will ask students to come out of a pose with their eyes open, sit up, close their eyes, tune in, and then open their eyes before moving on.

The nervous system is the subtlest part of our physical body. Therefore, the breath, which is also subtle, affects the nervous system most profoundly. It's like two tuning forks of the same frequency—when you strike one, the other immediately starts vibrating.

Encourage your students to always be conscious of their breathing, and work with their breath, especially when working at their edge. Slow, deep breathing is the nervous system's best friend. The breath is directly connected to the heartbeat and, as we breathe faster, the oscillations in the nervous system increase in intensity. Teaching students to slow down their breathing will slow down their heartbeat and calm their nerves. On the other hand, when they hold their breath, they build tension in the nervous system, which can increase blood pressure dramatically.

However, as teachers, we must be very careful with certain pranayama practices. Bhastrika pranayama (often known as "Breath of Fire") can damage or even destroy the nervous system. I'll never forget a woman who came to me for legal advice when I was practicing law. She was extremely agitated, constantly distracted, and couldn't finish a thought or a sentence. I learned that her nervous system was burnt out from years of practicing pranayama improperly, specifically bhastrika and kapalabhati (Skull-shining breath). When an excess of pranic energy floods the nervous system, it is like a balloon that's filled with more air than it has the strength to contain. The nervous system is shattered and severe mental trauma can result. The body must be properly prepared with years of asana (especially backbends) to safely receive and contain the power of prana.

And there are other ways to harm our students with the practice. For instance, the nervous system is agitated by jerky movements. This includes trembling during a pose by working too hard. Remind your students that there is no virtue in holding poses too long, for the benefits quickly unravel and turn into detriments. I have heard some teachers say to their students, "Shake it out!" and encourage their students to shake themselves after intense poses to release tension. This misses the point. It is far better to be still and melt the tension with awareness.

There are a number of specific techniques I recommend for bringing peace to students who are particularly scattered. Have your students do suspended inversions such as hanging on a pelvic swing or Adho Mukha Svanasana with a wall rope around their thighs. In these poses, the spine can release and the nerves in the spine can relax. This creates a sense of calmness as the body moves into its parasympathetic mode. Another way to create this effect is to have your students do Savasana with a head wrap. This contains the scattered waves of the brain so that, when the student removes the wrap, the brain waves are more coherent, focused, and calm.

Encourage your students to strive to maintain equanimity in every pose. However, for cultivating peace, balance is more important than the mere display of equanimity. If your students have been sitting in chairs all day, it is necessary to swing the pendulum the other way and work them vigorously to release pent-up tension. The art in this case is to work vigorously, yet not violently; intensely, yet with equanimity.

We feel peaceful only when we feel safe--when we don't have fear. Our sympathetic nervous system kicks in as soon as there is fear, in the "fight or flight" response. Hence, it is our duty as teachers to make sure our students feel safe in class. When our students feel safe, their parasympathetic system activates and begins self-exploration and healing. Self-exploration is impossible for one who lives in fear. Fearful people are more concerned with defense and with countering the aggressive force of an "enemy." When a student appears to be fearful, ask yourself, "What have I done to make this student feel unsafe? Is the student reflecting my doubt or fear, my lack of knowledge or experience?" Do not let an egoistic desire to appear competent create fear in your students or destroy their peacefulness.

Living in a consumer society, we may fear that unless we accumulate a lot of things, we will be labeled as failures. When we desire and are not able to possess, a discord arises within us and propels us into a restless state of frustration and strife. It is only a sense of contentment that can move our nervous system into a state of peace. The ideal is to have the means to acquire whatever we desire and yet be content with not having it. Then we can be calm. In other words, peace seldom comes from austere self-denial. Rather, it comes from having the ability to possess anything we want, yet consciously making the choice to have less in order to keep our lives simple and calm.

While external peace is the result of freedom and choice and lack of fear, internal peace is independent of external phenomenon. No matter what is happening outside, when I tap into my inner spirit, I am at peace. I enter that unruffled quality of chitti (pure consciousness, or God). When we connect with this chitti, then no matter whether we are driving on a freeway, meditating in a mountain meadow, or standing in front of a speeding bullet, we feel an expansive peace, like the feeling of stepping into a hushed cathedral or of melting into the colors of a sinking sun.

When we take the time to be peaceful and calm, we are given more time in return. Calmness grants us focus, and with this we accomplish more while expending less. Indeed, great focus comes from great calmness and not from great fervor. When calmness and peace is ours, we are receptive to our soul. We allow ourselves the imminence of bliss. This bliss is one of the greatest gifts we can share with our students.

Recognized as one of the world's top yoga teachers, Aadil Palkhivala began studying yoga at the age of seven with B.K.S. Iyengar and was introduced to Sri Aurobindo's yoga three years later. He received the Advanced Yoga Teacher's Certificate at the age of 22 and is the founder-director of internationally renowned Yoga Centers™ in Bellevue, Washington. Aadil is also a federally certified Naturopath, a certified Ayurvedic Health Science Practitioner, a clinical hypnotherapist, a certified Shiatsu and Swedish bodywork therapist, a lawyer, and an internationally sponsored public speaker on the mind-body-energy connection.



Return to http://www.yogajournal.com/for_teachers/1409

Yamas and Niyamas

Yamas and Niyamas
Definitions from T.K.V. Desikachar and Rod Stryker


Yamas are actions to control the self, to refrain from actions, words and thoughts which harm others and which are selfish.

Ahimsa – Kindness, compassion, and thoughtful consideration of yourself, other people and things.  Creatively implementing actions that cause the least damage in a situation.  As you live ahimsa, people are more and more comfortable in your presence.

Satya – Speaking the truth (without violating ahimsa).  As you live satya, you do not fail in your actions—what you say is what you do.

Asteya – To take nothing that does not belong to you.  To not take advantage of people who confide in you or entrust something to you.  As you live asteya, you will have access to everything that is precious in life.

Brahmacharya – To focus on moving toward the Highest Truth.  As you live brahmacharya, you do not expend your energies needlessly and you choose relationships that help you keep your direction.

Aparigraha – To take only what is necessary, not taking advantage of people who want to give you too much.  As you live aparigraha, you develop feelings of peace and lasting security.

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Niyamas: Positive virtues which are to be cultivated.

Shaucha – To keep yourself clean externally and internally (including clarity of mind and healthy functioning of your body).  As you live shaucha, you can distinguish between what is eternally pure and what needs to be maintained.

Santosha – To be modest and content with what you have.  As you live santosha, you are able to accept what happens and learn from it.

Tapas – To keep your body and mind fit by paying attention to what they need.  To apply discipline to give only what is needed.

Svadhyaya – To study oneself and the wisdom of others.

Ishvara pranidhana – To lay all your actions at the feet of God.  As you live ishvara pranidhana, you are content to know that you have done your best and to leave the outcome to a higher power.

Yamas and Niyamas in Food Practice

Which yamas and niyamas are shown in the following examples?




Which yamas and niyamas are lacking in the following situations:

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