India Herbs

Publication: The Tribune-Review

Author: Marjorie Wertz 

Date: 16 October 2006

Nancy Gumm, a physician assistant in Greensburg, began taking yoga classes about three years ago to combat her migraine headaches.

“I get migraines about three or four times a month,” she said. “People who get migraines have a hypersensitive nervous system, and yoga helps control the hypersensitive nervous system.

“The concentration on breathing helps with migraines, and the various postures aid the body in relaxing,” easing the headaches’ severity, Gumm said.

Yoga is a series of postures and related breathing exercises that promote control of the body and mind to attain physical and spiritual well-being. According to a recent poll in Yoga Journal magazine, some 16.5 million people in the U.S. now practice yoga.

Locally, classes are available in hospital settings and YMCAs, as well as fitness centers and yoga studios.

Although many people turn to yoga for general relaxation or mild exercise, others use it to target specific physical conditions.

As the co-owner of Wisdom and Wonders Yoga Studio in Greensburg, Tracey Bartos said she has seen a number of her clients’ ailments eased through yoga.

Her clients have found relief from stiff backs and shoulders, some knee problems, even sleep disorders and the discomfort of fibromyalgia, she said.

“The postures strengthen and lengthen the muscles. This improves flexibility,” she explained. “Yoga flushes out the system; it detoxes the body because of the twisting and bending. There is a constant reminder in yoga to breathe and lengthen the breathing. This is the key to health and energy.”

Barbara Ramm, a mental health counselor with Psychological Services of Greensburg, has been practicing yoga for two years as a way to help manage her asthma. She moves through the postures and breathing techniques four times a week at Wisdom and Wonders and at home.

“I realized I cannot take a class once a week and experience real change in my health,” Ramm said. “Yoga requires commitment, and making this choice was the beginning of taking charge of my health.”

Ramm said she believes it helps her to control her asthma, a condition that causes her airway to narrow, making it difficult to breathe.

“I used to tense up when I was short of breath, and my response to that was to be anxious and fearful. Yoga taught me to be aware of my breathing,” she said.

Ramm still uses her inhaler at times to deliver a quick dose of medicine. But she said that changing her response to the physical pain of an asthma attack helped her view it in a more relaxed way.

“Tracey taught me specific postures and breathing techniques to aid me in working through my shortness of breath. I’ve learned to stretch the muscles around the lungs, giving me freedom to breathe and lessening pain from coughing or involuntary movements,” Ramm said. “Yoga is no magic bullet, but neither is traditional medicine.”

In recent years, a number of studies on the medical effects of yoga have yielded positive results.

The Group Health Cooperative in Seattle conducted a study of yoga with 101 people who suffered chronic lower-back pain. “Viniyoga,” a gentle yoga style that emphasizes safety and healing, was compared with two other treatments: therapeutic exercise classes and reading a self-help book.

After 12 weeks, the symptoms of people in all three groups had improved, the study found. But for the next 14 weeks, symptoms continued to improve for the yoga practitioners only, while growing worse in the other two groups. The yoga practitioners also reported needing less pain medication than those who were reading the self-help book or doing strength and stretching exercises.

The authors of the study, published in the Dec. 20, 2005 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine, concluded that viniyoga was a safe and effective treatment for chronic lower-back pain.

In a separate study, researchers at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center found that yoga helped to combat side-effects from cancer treatment. Their study concentrated on 61 women who had undergone surgery for breast cancer, and who were receiving six weeks of radiation treatment.

Thirty of the women took a twice-a-week yoga class; the others did not. After six weeks, the women filled out detailed questionnaires grading their ability to lift groceries, walk a mile and perform other activities. They also were asked about fatigue, their sense of well-being and other quality-of-life issues.

The women who took yoga classes reported they were in better general health, were less fatigued and had fewer problems with daytime sleepiness. Results of the study were presented at a medical conference in Atlanta by the American Society of Clinical Oncology in April 2005.

Dr. Thomas Ljungman, medical director of the Well Being Center at Excela Health Westmoreland Hospital, in Greensburg, said yoga helps to reverse the toll stress takes on the body.

“Stress is when a person perceives their environment as being taxing or exceeding their resources and endangering their well-being,” he said. “Stress hormones — adrenaline, noradrenaline and cortisol — raise our heart rate, raise our blood pressure, decrease blood flow to the digestive tract, increase blood sugar, make blood thicker, increase our respiratory rate, and increase triglycerides and LDL, or bad cholesterol.”

Yoga’s postures and stretches relax the muscles and decrease the body’s stress level, he said.

“When we’re stretching one set of muscles, another set of muscles is strengthening,” Ljungman added. “Another component of yoga is the very intentional relaxation, going from head to the toes. By doing this we are helping … reduce the stress level in our bodies.

“Deep, full breathing brings more oxygen into our lungs and blood, and this tends to calm us.”

Joan Siwula, a registered nurse at Excela Health Frick Hospital, in Mt. Pleasant, has been practicing yoga for nearly 30 years and teaching it for 10 years. Even people who are aging or ill can enjoy its benefits, she said.

“Anybody can do yoga at any age,” Siwula said. “Postures can be altered and done on the floor or sitting in a chair. Pillows can be used to assist the person with the postures.

“Yoga allows a person focus; it’s a combination of calming the body and the mind.”

Yoga has been around for 6,000 years, Bartos noted.

“It’s quite simple,” she said, “and the benefits are there.”

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