Benefits And Risks Of Yoga In Healthy Adults

What are the health benefits and risks of yoga?

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Yoga is an age-old tradition, but the popularity of yoga is on the rise. To give you one example of its rising popularity, a survey by Harvard Medical School pointed that nine out of 10 Americans have heard of yoga, and more than 15% of Americans have done yoga in the last 6 months. The United Nations observes 21 June as the International Day of Yoga.

Yoga has been studied in great detail by researchers of modern medicine as well as complementary and alternate medicine. A lot of research focuses on using yoga in patients, as a treatment option to beat various diseases like depression, diabetes, hypertension, asthma, epilepsy, etc.

But, this article is about the practice of yoga in healthy adults, and it tries to present the results of studies related to the effects of yoga in otherwise healthy people. So, its conclusions also are valid for such healthy people. Those who want to try yoga as a treatment for some particular disease, may please refer to other sources of literature.

Yoga helps in reducing the overall stress of the body. The specific changes that occur to reduce stress are:

Reduced stress hormones (cortisol),

Reduced heart stimulation (blood pressure and heart rate),

Reduced metabolism (blood glucose, cholesterol)

Thus, the benefits of yoga include favorable changes in blood pressure, body composition, glucose, and lipids. There is emerging evidence that the practice of yoga contributes to an increase in positive mental health.

Though yoga offers the above benefits, it is not free of its adverse effects that can happen in about 20% or even higher number of people practicing yoga, the most common being sprains and strains. It is important to note here, that similar adverse effects are seen with almost every exercise program and they are not exclusive to yoga alone. People with illnesses should seek medical advice before practicing yoga or any exercise program.

About the author: Dr. Naval Asija is a licensed MBBS Physician from India. MBBS is the equivalent of the MD degree offered by international medical schools. He is based in Delhi, India, and works as a medical writer, editor, and consultant. He supports medical researches as an author's editor, medical communication companies involved in medico-marketing activities, and medical technology companies in improving their products. He can be contacted via his LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/navalasija/

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