User:Jackiemcdonnell/Yoga as exercise

Exercise[edit]

The energy cost of exercise is measured in units of metabolic equivalent of task (MET). Less than 3 METs counts as light exercise; 3 to 6 METs is moderate; 6 or over is vigorous. American College of Sports Medicine and American Heart Association guidelines count periods of at least 10 minutes of moderate MET level activity towards their recommended daily amounts of exercise. For healthy adults aged 18 to 65, the guidelines recommend moderate exercise for 30 minutes five days a week, or vigorous aerobic exercise for 20 minutes three days a week. In Francesca Latino’s article, “Effects of an 8-Week Yoga Based Physical Exercise Intervention on Teachers’ Burnout,” the effects of yoga on the mental and emotional well-being of a group of teachers were explored. Latino writes, “In this study, the results reveal that the 8-week yoga exercise intervention program significantly helped teachers attain a greater awareness of their emotions and body sensations and improved professional burnout symptoms” (Latino).

Treated as a form of exercise, a complete yoga session with asanas and pranayama provides 3.3 ± 1.6 METs, on average a moderate workout. Surya Namaskar ranged from a light 2.9 to a vigorous 7.4 METs; the average for a session of yoga practice without Surya Namaskar was a light 2.9 ± 0.8 METs.

Physical or Hindu[edit]

Since the mid-20th century, yoga has been used, especially in the Western world, as physical exercise for fitness and suppleness, rather than for what the historian of American yoga, Stefanie Syman, calls any "overtly Hindu" purpose. In 2010, this ambiguity triggered what the New York Times called "a surprisingly fierce debate in the gentle world of yoga". Some saffronising Indian-Americans campaigned to "Take Back Yoga" by informing Americans and other Westerners about the connection between yoga and Hinduism. The campaign was criticised by the New Age author Deepak Chopra, but supported by the president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, R. Albert Mohler Jr. Jain notes that yoga is not necessarily Hindu, as it can also be Jain or Buddhist; nor is it homogeneous or static, so she is critical of both what she calls the "Christian yogaphobic position" and the "Hindu origins position". Farmer writes that Syman identifies a Protestant streak in yoga as exercise, "with its emphasis on working the body. This effortful yoga is, she says, paradoxical, both 'an indulgence and a penance'." Yoga (here Hanumanasana) is permitted in Malaysia as long as it does not contain religious elements.

Authorities differ on whether yoga is purely exercise. For example, in 2012, New York state decided that yoga was exempt from state sales tax as it did not constitute "true exercise", whereas in 2014 the District of Columbia was clear that yoga premises were subject to the local sales tax on premises "the purpose of which is physical exercise". Similar debates have taken place in a Muslim context; for example, restrictions on yoga have been lifted in Saudi Arabia. In Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur permits yoga classes provided they do not include chanting or meditation. The yoga teacher and author Mira Mehta, asked by Yoga Magazine in 2010 whether she preferred her pupils to commit to a spiritual path before they start yoga, replied "Certainly not. A person's spiritual life is his or her own affair. People come to yoga for all sorts of reasons. High on the list is health and the desire to become de-stressed." Kimberley J. Pingatore, studying attitudes among American yoga practitioners, found that they did not view the categories of religious, spiritual, and secular as alternatives.

However, Haṭha yoga's "ecstatic ... transcendent ... possibly subversive" elements remain in yoga used as exercise.The yoga teacher and author Jessamyn Stanley writes that modern Western society "does not respect the esoteric or spiritual at all", making people skeptical about any alignment of yoga as practised in the West with "chakras or spirituality". Stanley states that it is possible to start a practice without considering such matters, and that styles such as Bikram do not mention them, but that a deepening yoga practice will bring "an overall evolution of the self". Syman suggests that part of the attraction of Bikram and Ashtanga Yoga was that under the sweat, the commitment, the schedule, the physical demands and even the verbal abuse was a hard-won ecstasy, "a deep feeling of vitality, a feeling of pure energy, an unbowed posture, and mental acuity". That context has led to a division of opinion among Christians, some like Alexandra Davis of the Evangelical Alliance asserting that it is acceptable as long as they are aware of modern yoga's origins, others like Paul Gosbee stating that yoga's purpose is to "open up chakras" and release kundalini or "serpent power" which in Gosbee's view is "from Satan", making "Christian yoga ... a contradiction". Church halls are sometimes used for yoga, and in 2015 a yoga group was banned from a church hall in Bristol by the local parochial church council, stating that yoga represented "alternative spiritualities".

In a secular context, the journalists Nell Frizzell and Reni Eddo-Lodge have debated (in The Guardian) whether Western yoga classes represent "cultural appropriation". In Frizzell's view, yoga has become a new entity, a long way from the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, and while some practitioners are culturally insensitive, others treat it with more respect. Eddo-Lodge agrees that Western yoga is far from Patanjali, but argues that the changes cannot be undone, whether people use it "as a holier-than-thou tool, as a tactic to balance out excessive drug use, or practised similarly to its origins with the spirituality that comes with it". Jain argues however that charges of appropriation "from 'the East' to 'the West'" fail to take account of the fact that yoga is evolving in a shared multinational process; it is not something that is being stolen from one place by another.

Health[edit]

Further information: Yoga as therapy The Indian Minister for Women and Child Development, Maneka Gandhi, joining a programme of yoga for pregnant women in 2018. She is sitting in Dandasana, staff pose.

Yoga as exercise has been popularized in the Western world by claims about its health benefits. The history of such claims was reviewed by William J. Broad in his 2012 book The Science of Yoga; he states that the claims that yoga was scientific began as Hindu nationalist posturing. Among the early exponents was Kuvalayananda, who attempted to demonstrate scientifically in his purpose-built 1924 laboratory at Kaivalyadhama that Sarvangasana(shoulderstand) specifically rehabilitated the endocrine glands (the organs that secrete hormones). He found no evidence to support such a claim, for this or any other asana.

The impact of yoga as exercise on physical and mental health has been a topic of systematic studies (evaluating primary research), although a 2014 report found that, despite its common practice and possible health benefits, it remained "extremely understudied". A systematic review of six studies found that Iyengar yoga is effective at least in the short term for both neck pain and low back pain. A review of six studies found benefits for depression, but noted that the studies' methods imposed limitations, while a clinical practice guideline from the American Cancer Society stated that yoga may reduce anxiety and stress in people with cancer. A 2015 systematic review called for more rigour in clinical trials of the effect of yoga on mood and measures of stress.

The practice of asanas has been claimed to improve flexibility, strength, and balance; to alleviate stress and anxiety, and to reduce the symptoms of lower back pain. A review of five studies noted that three psychological (positive affect, mindfulness, self-compassion) and four biological mechanisms (posterior hypothalamus, interleukin-6, C-reactive protein and cortisol) that might act on stress had been examined empirically, whereas many other potential mechanisms remained to be studied; four of the mechanisms (positive affect, self-compassion, inhibition of the posterior hypothalamus and salivary cortisol) were found to mediate the potential stress-lowering effects of yoga. A 2017 review found moderate-quality evidence that yoga reduces back pain. For people with cancer, yoga may help relieve fatigue, improve psychological outcomes, and support sleep quality and life attitudes, although results vary from reviews published in 2017.

A 2015 systematic review noted that yoga may be effective in alleviating symptoms of prenatal depression. There is evidence that practice of asanas improves birth outcomes and physical health and quality of life measures in the elderly, and reduces hypertension.