Category Archives: Yoga Research

A Meditation Proven to Invoke the Relaxation Response

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In last week’s blog, I shared some of the benefits of a consistent mediation practice and briefly discussed Herbert Benson’s early research.  This week, I’d like to prove how simple an effective meditation technique can be.

The meditation below was used in Benson’s research.  I’ve stolen it from his book The Relaxation Response.

  1. Pick a focus word, short phrase, or prayer rooted in your belief system.
  2. Sit quietly in a comfortable position.
  3. Close your eyes.
  4. Relax your muscles.
  5. Breathe slowly. Say the focus word as you exhale.
  6. Assume a passive attitude. When other thoughts intrude, just say “Oh well” and return to your repetition.
  7. Continue for 10-20 minutes.
  8. Open your eyes and sit for another minute.
  9. Practice once or twice daily.

If it seems like I’ve been writing about meditation a lot lately, I have.  But only because I strongly believe meditation has the power to transform your life and the lives of those around you.

Enjoy, and practice!

Namaste

Tracy Weber

Come visit Whole Life Yoga in Seattle, and join my author mailing list for updates on MURDER STRIKES A POSE, available early 2014 from Midnight Ink!

The Relaxation Response

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What if there was an exercise that you could do for as little as ten minutes a day, three times a week that was proven to:

  • Decrease blood pressure
  • Reduce or prevent migraines
  • Combat heart disease
  • Reduce cholesterol
  • Decrease premenstrual symptoms
  • Decrease alcohol consumption
  • Decrease pain
  • Boost immune system functioning
  • Improve sleep
  • Decrease adrenaline production, thereby lowering the “fight or flight” response
  • Decrease anxiety and stress
  • Boost creativity
  • Improve relationships
  • Provide an overall feeling of health and well being
  • Increase your ability to recover from sudden stressors
  • And much, much more

Would you do it?

Better yet, what if you could do this exercise virtually anywhere—at home, riding the bus, even sitting at your desk at work?  And what if you never even had to break a sweat?

That exercise not only exists, it’s been used for thousands of years.

I’m talking, of course, about meditation.

Meditation has been studied extensively in the West, much more so than yoga’s other tools.  Herbert Benson, a researcher at Harvard Medical School, was one of meditation’s research pioneers in the 1970s.

Studying something as New Age as meditation wasn’t exactly kosher forty years ago, so Dr. Benson worked under the cover of darkness. He snuck experienced meditators into his research facility late at night, measured physiological markers, and mapped brain wave patterns.  The results were impressive. Meditators showed measurable changes in brain wave activity that allowed them to manage the stresses of life much more effectively than non-meditators.  Benson called meditation’s health and emotional benefits “The Relaxation Response.”

Many other researchers—including Joan Borysenko, Jon Kabat Zinn, and Dean Ornish—have replicated and expanded on these results. Their work has shown that a variety of meditation methods are equally powerful, and that effective meditation doesn’t require hours of time, a Zen-like yoga space or Tibetan master teacher.  To meditate, you simply have to sit quietly for ten minutes a day, three times a week and focus on a word, phrase, idea, or image.

Start with this simple breath focused meditation or go online and Google the word “meditation.” You’ll find literally thousands of sites with hundreds of techniques, one of which is bound to appeal to you.  Of course we also offer a Meditation 101 class at Whole Life Yoga, and my Yoga for Anxiety class teaches meditation techniques that have been proven to reduce anxiety.

Give it a try.  I think you’ll be surprised at the results!

Namaste

Tracy Weber

Come visit Whole Life Yoga in Seattle, and join my author mailing list for updates on MURDER STRIKES A POSE, available early 2014 from Midnight Ink!

Meditations to Decrease Stress and Inflammation!

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yogi doing meditationA recent study at UCLA’s Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences demonstrated once again that even short meditations, when done consistently, have positive effects on both the body and the mind. The study evaluated 49 caregivers of patients with Alzheimer’s and dementia. Almost 50% of these caregivers experience clinical depression, and they are also twice as likely as the general population to report high levels of stress.

The study divided the caregivers (who ranged in ages from 45 to 91) into two groups: one that practiced a 12-minute meditation daily for 8 weeks, and one that spent 12 minutes each day for 8 weeks relaxing while listening to a relaxation CD.

The meditation group showed several benefits over the group that listened to the music:

  • Significantly lower levels of depressive symptoms
  • Improvements in reported mental health
  • Improvements in cognitive functioning
  • Increased telomerase activity in the blood (an indication of decreased cellular aging)
  • Significant decreases in blood proteins associated with inflammation.

All these benefits from just 12 minutes of meditation a day!

This specific study examined a chant and meditation practice called Kirtan Kriya, but prior studies on meditation have shown similar mind-body benefits with a variety of meditations. In short, any meditation practice you do for 10 minutes or more daily is likely to achieve similar results.

The meditation below has been used in other studies on meditation’s “relaxation response.” But remember, the most effective meditation practice is one you will actually do. Hundreds, if not thousands, of meditation techniques exist and are easily found on the web. Experiment and find the one that works best for you.

Simple Counting Meditation:

  • Sit comfortably, with your spine erect and the crown of your head floating up
    to the ceiling.
  • Allow your eyes to close, and notice your breath—without intentionally trying to
    change it. Bring your attention to the warmth and coolness of the breath
    at the tip of your nostrils.
  • After 2 – 3 minutes, or whenever you are ready, start counting each exhalation.
    For example, when you exhale the first time, think “one.” The next time you exhale, count “two.”  Keep counting silently to yourself, until you get to ten. After you reach ten, then start over again from “one.”
  • You’ll know your mind has wandered because you’ll lose count or notice that you’re thinking about something else. When that happens, (and it will!) try not to get frustrated. Instead, simply start over again by counting from “one.”  Without judgment or frustration, notice how often you need to restart counting.   The goal isn’t to get to 10, but to keep refocusing whenever your mind wanders.
  • Continue this meditation for 10 minutes or longer if you’d like.

I’ve outlined two other methods in prior blog articles: a simple Meditation for Inner Peace and a Breath Focused Meditation. I will post additional meditations in the future, so keep checking back. Remember not to worry about “being good” at mediation–just by the act of meditating, you are inherently good at it regardless of how often your mind wanders as long as you keep bringing it back.

Namaste

Tracy Weber

Come visit Whole Life Yoga in Seattle!

Article on Viniyoga for Back Pain–Complete with a Practice!

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Articles touting the benefits of Viniyoga seem to be popping up everywhere (and that’s a good thing!). One of the newest examples is an article called “Watch Your Back” in Yoga Journal. This article talks about Viniyoga’s proven benefits in reducing back pain. Specifically, it discusses the Group Health study on Viniyoga for low back pain and shares the personal case study of a woman who healed her back using Viniyoga.

The student, Terri Stoeker, has a back pain story much like my own.  Like Terri, my back injury cane “out of the blue,” though it had likely been building for quite some time.  Unlike Terri, I suffered for years–seven to be exact.  During that time, I tried a number of methods for healing: physical therapy, acupuncture, muscle relaxants, anti-inflammatory medication, osteopathic manipulation, counseling on pain management, ice, rest, and massage therapy. At one point, I even said that I’d dance naked around a witch doctor’s fire if that would help.  The one remedy that healed me, after seven years of failed experiments, was Viniyoga.

Terri’s relief came quickly.  Mine took a bit longer. But after seven years of pain, a few months to get relief seemed like nothing.  In fact, since my doctors and I had already given up hope, the fact that I healed at all is nothing short of a miracle.

I’d like to share two of my favorite quotes from the article with you.

The first is from the student, Terri Stoeker:

“You can let your back control you and change your life into something sedentary and painful, or you can find something that can keep you healthy and get you back to 95 percent normal. I was told I would never run or garden again. Now I can do those things. I have to be careful, I have to take care of myself, but I live my life. Yoga has done that for me.”

The second is from my teacher, Gary Kraftsow.

“We’re not talking about fancy yoga or power yoga  here. You don’t need an hour-long class or a special outfit or a fancy mat to do this. This practice is available to everybody. You can learn it easily and use it to feel better and really begin to manage your condition.”

The article comes complete with a yoga practice that may help decrease back pain.  But be forewarned, the photos are misleading.  In fact, they only show part of each position.  The movement between positions is vitally important in Viniyoga.  So I highly recommend using the text to guide your practice, rather than the photos.  Better yet, sign up for my Yoga for Healthy Backs class!  In the mean time, read the article, and tell me what you think!

Go Viniyoga!

Tracy

Come visit Whole Life Yoga in Seattle!

Research Proves it! Yoga Provides Benefits Greater than Western Exercise

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Let me start this blog article with a disclaimer.  I love yoga, but I’m equally fond of other forms of exercise.  I regularly ride an exercise bike, and my puppy-girl walks me about 20 miles every week.  My yoga practice has always been more about by calming my brain than firming my bottom, so to speak. It would never even occur to me to choose between the two.  But for those of you who think I’m crazy or whose schedules force you to choose, recent research shows that yoga may have increased benefits when compared to more Western forms of exercise.

Brittanie DeChino, an instructor at The George Washington University’s School of Public Health, recently presented her research at the 58th Annual Meeting of the American College of Sports Medicine and 2nd World Congress on Exercise is Medicine®. Her research is noteworthy because of its focus. Although many studies have examined the short-term physical and psychological benefits of yoga, hers is one of the first to examine how long-term yoga practitioners compare to long-term exercisers.

Brittanie and her team surveyed 163 participants from yoga and fitness centers across the Washington, D.C. area.  Participates ranged in age from 18 to 65, and were approximately 80% female. According to Ms. DeChino, her team found the following:

“We surveyed the participants on psychological well-being, as measured by anxiety, depression, coping, mindfulness, perceived stress and general health symptoms. Interestingly, the two groups – yoga practitioners and habitual exercisers – were similar with regard to self-reported symptoms of anxiety and depression.

However, the yoga practitioners reported lower prevalence of joint pain and headaches than those who engaged in cardiovascular exercise and weight training. They also had higher scores for mindfulness and coping skills, and lower scores for perceived stress, compared with the exercise group.”

The joint pain reductions are intriguing. Many people practice yoga specifically because yoga is a low impact exercise, which means that people with pre-existing joint pain are likely to be over-represented in the yoga group. In spite of that, yoga practitioners reported less pain than participants in other forms of exercise.  Even more encouraging, this study supports the Aetna study that showed practicing Viniyoga reduces work-related stress.

I’m also not surprised by the comparative levels of anxiety and depression.  Yoga can help significantly with these two conditions, but the most effective yoga practices for anxiety and depression incorporate pranayama (breath work) and meditation, combined with physical postures.  Typical American yoga classes focus almost exclusively on the poses.  Check out my prior blog articles and  for breath practices that may help with anxiety and depression.

I’d love to continue highlighting yoga research in this blog.  If you hear about other yoga studies, let me know!

Namaste

Tracy

More Research on the Benefits of Viniyoga–Viniyoga Reduces Workplace Stress!

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I know from personal experience that Viniyoga is an amazing tool for reducing workplace stress—that’s what hooked me on it almost fifteen years ago, when I still worked at Microsoft.  But now, research proves it!

Aetna, inc. recently studied methods of stress reduction in the workplace. The results were published in the online version of the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology. The study evaluated the effectiveness of Mindfulness Meditation (a specific type of meditation) and Viniyoga on both perceived levels of stress and biological markers of stress. The Viniyoga intervention used in the study was designed by my teacher, Gary Kraftsow. The study participants included 239 Aetna employees located in California and Connecticut who were split into three groups:  the Mindfulness Meditation group, the Viniyoga group, and a control.

The results were encouraging.  Both the Mindfulness Meditation and the Viniyoga interventions saw over a 30% reduction in perceived stress levels. Participants also showed significant improvements in several heart rate measurements, suggesting that their bodies were better able to manage stress.  Even better, both Viniyoga and Mindfulness Meditation worked in about half the time as other commonly used mind-body interventions.

The Viniyoga intervention included a twelve-week yoga program that used physical yoga postures, breathing techniques, and guided relaxation. Participants met in class once a week and received practice handouts to use at home and in the office. Which just goes to prove what I’ve said all along—a well-conceived home practice gets results!

For more details on the study, check out the article on Aetna’s web site.

Be well, and come see me in class soon to reduce your stress!

Namaste

Tracy

Come visit Whole Life Yoga in Seattle, and check out our Series on Yoga to Ease Stress!

Research Shows It! Viniyoga Can Help Heal Your Back!

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Finally, a yoga-related news article I’m happy to pass on to you! It seems like yoga has had more than its share of bad press lately—from the New York Times article proclaiming that yoga can “wreck your body” to many recent articles that have been forwarded to me about a famous (non-viniyoga) yoga guru who has recently, shall we say, fallen from grace. 

So I was more than a little pleased when a student approached me in my Yoga for Healthy Backs class recently to say that two of her friends recently forwarded her a positive article about yoga from The Huffington Post.  This article discusses recent research showing what I’ve known for years:  that yoga, specifically viniyoga, can help overcome chronic low back pain.

The research described is the most recent in a pair of studies co-sponsored by the National Institute of Health and Group Health Cooperative.  Both studies used viniyoga—the same style taught at Whole Life Yoga, and the yoga protocols were designed by my teacher, Gary Kraftsow.  One goal of the most recent study was to see if earlier benefits of viniyoga could be replicated with a larger test group.

According to Karen Sherman, one of the study authors, they specifically chose viniyoga, because “we wanted to pick something to test that was likely to be safe and easy for beginners to practice both in classes and at home.”

The results?  Students who participated in weekly 45 – 50 minute viniyoga classes, including deep breathing and guided relaxation, experienced clinically significant improvements in low back pain and dysfunction.  And those improvements were still apparent at least 14 weeks after the end of the study.  Similar benefits were found in students who practiced weekly 52 minute stretching classes with 20 minutes of home stretching on non-class days.  Although the article does not state this, I do believe the yoga students were also given home practices. 

Researchers attribute the improvements to the physical benefits of yoga—specifically, stretching and strengthening, versus any mental benefits. So I guess all the stress reduction and emotional balance we yogis experience is just an awesome side benefit!  😉  (By the way, a recent study on viniyoga for stress reduction also showed great results, but that’s a blog article for a different day).

And on a personal note—the Group Health study specifically looked at chronic low back dysfunction that interfered with participant’s day-to-day activities.  But I can tell you from personal experience, yoga also helps with upper back and neck pain, along with a variety of other physical, physiological, and emotional issues.

If you, or someone you know, suffers from chronic low back pain, consider giving viniyoga a try! If you’re in the Seattle area, please check out Whole Life Yoga’s Yoga for Healthy Backs series.

Namaste

Tracy Weber

Come visit Whole Life Yoga in Seattle!