July 19, 2012 • 51 mins
About 20 million people in the U.S. practice some form of yoga. In this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind Julie and Robert suss out the claims and revelations -- could it really be a telomere fountain of youth? And what poses should a newbie never do?
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff
Works dot Com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to ball your Mind.
My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas. What
are we talking about today, Julie, Well, before we start
talking about some yoga, have something to say. What's that all?
(00:29):
I never can go that. I like how your own
has kind of like it has kind of a twang
at the beginning of like kind of sounds like a
Jonas Janis Joplin kind of an home Yeah, my mom, Ye,
I'm right, mom, Okay, yeah, yeah, that's we We are
going to be talking about yoga and and uh, not
(00:52):
just the explosion of yoga in the West, but um
about some of the things that have come to light
recently about the ben if it's yoga and I guess
sound of what you could say are risks, Yeah, yeah,
and it's uh, we should we should point out here
and all of this that neither of us are experts
in yoga by any stretch of imagination. However, yoga is
(01:14):
a part of both of our lives. How long how
long have you been taking yoga and practicing? Um about
fifteen years now? Wow? Ye see, so you've you've really
been at it. I've My wife and I started taking
it two or three years ago, so we're still fairly
new to it. But it's really it's really become an
important part of our lives and an important part of
(01:35):
my life. I feel like it I've benefited from it
in that I'm in I feel like I'm in better
shape physically from it. I feel like it aids my relaxation. Um,
I can't count the number of times where I've gone
into yoga, maybe in a bit of a bit of
maybe not a full on huff, but you know, I'll
be a little stressed out at the end of the day.
(01:56):
I've been trying to you know, at the end of
a Tuesday, I've been trying to get stuff wrapped up,
us specifically wrapped up often for this podcast, you know,
getting getting research under wraps. And then then I go
to yoga and I'm all kind of a bundle of
nerves and all these thoughts going, you know, this way
and that, and then I come out of it and
I'm just in a different state of mind. I'm much
more relaxed and and uh and focused state of mind. Yeah,
(02:18):
I mean, that's the thing. About yoga. It is transformative,
and I think that that's why it has taken off
so fully, particularly since the nineteen nineties, because people have
discovered that even if they're a casual user of yoga
so to speak, um, you know, and they do a
power yoga or a big room hot yoga, they're going
to find some sort of the effects there and say, wow,
(02:39):
for for a space there, maybe even just for five minutes,
my body completely relaxed, and more importantly, my mind, uh
you know, followed in line and I had a bit
of a peaceful moment. And that is the secret behind yoga, right,
this this sort of tranquility that it promotes in our minds,
in our bodies. I keep coming back to our Centaur
(03:03):
episode where well, I mean they could, it would be interesting.
I'm not sure what kind of poses they would get into,
because you don't think of horses is really being a
big contortionist, that kind of stiff legged um. And you know,
you horse enthusiasts can correct me if I'm wrong on that,
But you don't really see him doing a lot of
poses out there. So yeah, I feel like a center
(03:24):
would be limited. But but in our center, but podcast
we pointed out the the the idea that modern humans
we often think of ourselves, we think of the mind
body connection as a rider on a horse. We are
the rider, or whether our brain is the is the
rider and the horses our body and our horse is stubborn,
(03:45):
um lazy, their problems with it, and our mind is
in its own thing, and then the mind the rider
inevitably gets angry with the horse, and there's this conflict
between the two and uh. In various philosopher's New Age
fingers have have made the argument that we are essentially
a center, that we're really this mind and body, this
(04:06):
this single entity combined of the two, and the more
we're in touch with that, the easier time will have.
And yoga, in my experience, really feels like um. It
underlines that that vision of the mind body connection. You know,
because you because like I said, you go into the yoga,
you're you're just all mind a lot of the times,
(04:27):
or maybe you're you're all mind with like one other
thing like oh, your knees bothering your your your your
teeth are bothering you. You're you know, whatever happens to
be the one part of your body that's giving you
the most, that's getting the most attention at the time
you enter that in that room with that mind body connection,
and when you leave the ideas that you're more in
(04:48):
touch with the body. Right, that's the idea of yoga.
So that's a union between the mind and the body.
Um so. And and that's what we will see played
out actually in sign typic studies when we we speak
a little bit more about that later, um, But we
should probably talk about how yoga came to become so
(05:09):
popular here in the West and um why it arrived
at our our doorsteps. Um. Particularly I'm thinking about a
woman named Indra Devi and her her real name or
her say her real name, but her name is was
Eugenie Peterson, and she was a popular Indian star. She
studied under Jagannath g Gune, really important guy in the
(05:32):
history of yoga and actually trying to um put some
scientific method behind this and and and scientific rigors to
examine yoga and its benefits. And he actually established an
ashram in India devoted to the scientific study, and he
was an advisor to Gandhi. But anyway, Indra Devi studied
with him, and she actually moved to Hollywood and taught
(05:55):
yoga to other actors, including Glorious Wantson, Greta Garbo and
Mary Land in Rome. She was really the first yoga
teacher to the stars, but people don't normally associate yoga
with her. It's more with our friends the Beatles. Yes.
In fact, we have an article on the Sunhouse stuff works.
Did the Beatles induce yoga to Western civilization? Which is
(06:18):
a kind of a yes and no article, But they
does go into George Harrison who studied satar under Rabbi
Shankar in India, and he sort of became involved in
um different aspects of yoga and meditation, particularly with a
yogi named the Maharishi. Yes. And and he's definitely the
(06:39):
name that that tends to stick in people's minds when
they think of of of importing yoga into Western culture. Yeah.
And so you know, actually you can see how that
influenced their their musical careers, not just even their personal careers,
but you can hear the music from that time, um,
and not just the satar, but these these different melodies
that are Eastern melodies, um that sort of pervaded music
(07:01):
at the time. But anyway, so they sort of brought
that UM, these ideas of meditation and trans transcendental meditation
in particular to the US, and the maharishi is someone
who a lot of people began to follow, especially UM
through TM transcendental meditation. UM. So today we have twenty
million people in the US alone who are practicing yoga. Yeah,
(07:24):
and they're practicing a variety of different types of yoga.
We're talking about this the other day. Yoga in a sense,
modern yoga in the in the States and Western culture.
It has this kind of viral aspect to it where
it seems to spread from carrier to carrier and UH
and it kind of adapts itself to each new host.
(07:45):
So that so that after a while you have these
different versions of this endless variety of yoga that's UH
is branching out and evolving from patient zero. UM, who
I guess would have been color responsive. Um. So, so
just to name a few you, UM, there's a whole
list of these right at the front of The Science
of Yoga by William J. Broad, which we are basing
(08:06):
a lot of this podcast on. By the way, this
is a really great book. We cannot um cover in
its entirety because we would talk for ten hours. But um,
but we are going to touch on some of the highlights. Yeah,
so we'll touch on it some more and and certainly
pick up that book if you're interested in this. But
at the very beginning, he does a great job of
just laying out like some brief overview material, and he
mentions a number of the styles of yoga. The first
(08:28):
one he mentions any sara, which is which is actually
the one that I tend to practice. It's a great one,
by the way. Yeah, yeah, I find it. You know,
it's nice, it's kind of it's flowy as an upbeat philosophical,
philosophical side to it, you know, and uh, I've benefited
from it. Which which variety do you tend to I
started out with my anger, which is really uh, I
(08:50):
guess you would call it precision yoga. It's very specific.
You hold the post for a long time. The idea
is that you want to get the postures right before you,
you know, really sort of launch yourself into yoga. And
um half of course, which is sort of a catch
all for for a general yoga. UM, that's actually very
old yoga based on tantra yoga, which we'll talk about
(09:11):
yea and in a separate podcast. Yeah, but yeah, so
that those are a few, and then there's a tanga,
there's a bickram or hot Yoga, Hot Yoga TM by
the way trademarked it. Um there's Kundalini, Vanyasa, all sorts here,
power yoga. UM. I actually saw not too long ago
(09:32):
a class that was I think it's like death metal yoga.
What I'm like kidding, it's get the Young Blood Gallery.
Really they do it to to death metal. They do
it to death metal, is my understanding. UM. So, as
you say, like there's each iteration brings with it a
bit of flavor from from that person. Which yoga for real? Men,
(09:53):
that's the one we're talking about. The Diamond Dallas Page,
the former wrestler has been advocating. And you know, you
can get into these various styles and you can make
some criticism or even legitimate criticism of some of these
styles based on on science or tradition or you know,
or what have you. Certainly some of them are are
(10:13):
more in touch with the roots of yoga than others. Um.
But it's it's it's adapting itself to new styles that
like the people who would be interested in Diamond Dallas pages,
yoga class or yoga DVDs or whatever he's selling, are
rather different from the people that would necessarily be up
for any sorry yoga and uh and so in a
(10:34):
broad sense, I'm totally in favor that, you know, well,
I think the cool thing about all these different branches
of it, are these different styles, is that you do
get a fuller understanding of what yoga is. Even if
you are doing something like power yoga or death yoga, UM,
jazz yoga, jes jess Han's yoga UM, you know you're
gonna take something away from anger yoga and a different
(10:56):
thing from any sara and And it doesn't mean that
one is more correct over the other. It's just it's
very different. Maybe not the death metals so much, but
that is what makes it such an interesting practice, but
also so incredibly difficult to study scientifically, right because it's
not like you're standardizing it and you're saying everybody do
these poses only sure bick Rum, right, because I think
(11:20):
that is actually he's got those uh poses trademarked. But
but you do have all these different things going on,
so it's it's hard to wholesales say Okay, we're gonna
study yoga because it's just this one thing and it's
not the other reason why it's hard to studies because
big farmer really isn't all that interested. Yeah. William J.
(11:41):
Brod does a great job of stressing this in the
book that all Right. So who funds research, specifically who
funds medical research? A lot of time it is big
pharmaceutical companies who are interested in finding that next big drug, which,
on one hand, they want to find the next big
drug that's gonna be very beneficial for human health, but
they also want to find the next big drug that's
gonna make them a lot of money. I mean, it's
(12:02):
that's just the nature of the beast. Uh, say what
you will about it, but that's how it works. So
when you're looking at yoga, um, with very few exceptions,
you're not looking at something that can be turned into
a product or a pill. I mean, unless a major
pharmaceutical company wanted to open a studio. You know, it's
it's not the kind of thing that's gonna gonna have
(12:22):
an immediate pharmaceutical tie in or benefit. So no, you're right,
because it's not like you can take this pill that's
gonna lower your cortisol levels, your stress hormone levels, increased
testosterone levels in some cases, um, you know, reduce your
metabolic rate. I mean that you're right, there's all these
different things going on in yoga that you just couldn't
(12:43):
take a pill for. So hence the disinterest on the subject.
So you see, you see plenty of studies. They've been
countless studies. I mean, I'm not countless, but there have
been thousands of studies just in over the past decade
or so people looking into yoga signs of yoga. But
it's often more of a side product. It's not necessarily
(13:04):
like a it's not like a huge extensive of study.
In most cases, it's not one of these things where
you have, you know, hundreds or dozens even of of
individuals that are being subjected to REDI study. In some cases,
they're they're looking at one individual. There, there's not we're
not talking about deep, um inquisitive scientific studies. In many cases,
(13:27):
they're more sort of side studies to researchers, core funded interests. Yeah,
and William J. Rod does bring up the point that
a lot of the studies that he came across, and
I think he looked at what a hundred years worth
of studies were conducted in India, and so there are
a lot of them are a little known studies. Yeah,
they're not necessarily the kind of thing you can just
(13:48):
do a search for and then purchase the study for,
you know, or yeah, whatever outrageous price they're charging on
the UH in the journals. But yeah, you'll be outside
of of easily obtainable UM medical documents and what. I
think that just as a side note that William J.
Broad did a really good job of trying to bring
(14:09):
all these different studies to light, because he is talking
about a hundred years worth of studies, some of them
being conducted during a time when there was an m
R I or various different technologies available to us. And
then he actually went through some of that material and
myth busted some of the erroneous studies that came up
because of this idea of you know, there weren't there
(14:29):
wasn't double blind studies and some of them, um so
some of the conclusions that were drawing were wrong. Um
or just trying to go and sort things out and
look at other studies that try to corroborate these older
studies later on. That is a massive amount of work.
So I did want to bring that up because, um,
you know, when this book came out, there was a
lot of um rancor from the yoga community because he
(14:53):
does talk about some things that may be difficult to
hear right now, um, in terms of the risk of
yoga that we'll talk about later. You saw people responding
to him on on some of these message boards and
these yoga publications where they were just like, like, why
does he hate yoga so much? Why he practicing it
for forty years? Yeah, he was just I mean, he's
a science writer who has practice yoga for years and years,
(15:16):
like since the seventies. I believe it's it's just it
is and has been a part of his life for
a long time. And he had been wanting to bring
these two together too. I mean a lot of a
lot of the questions that he tackles in this book
are things that that he'd been wondering about, but he
didn't really have you know, he hadn't taken the time
to actually study them and do the research and find
out what science can tell us about yoga. Yeah, and
(15:37):
you can actually tell him this book, you've read it
from from cover to cover, you can tell that he
loves and respects it and does it as much as
possible and will continue to do it. Um that My
hope is that ten more books respawned from this book,
clarifying the science even further. A lot of the negative
stuff that can out really was wasn't as much the book.
I think that that New York Times article that that
(15:57):
broad also wrote that post the New York Times, and
it was the title of it, how yoga can wreck
your body exactly. That's it. And it's one of those
things you know that makes the rounds, it shows up
and feels Facebook feeds. In many cases people don't even
necessarily read that kind of thing, you know, it goes
that gets just shot around an email and the instant
messages sending is yoga is dangerous. This thing that you
(16:19):
told us was was easy that everybody could do, that
everyone could benefit from, and it was low impact and
it was all you know, hippie dippy and care free
could kill me. Uh And and that comes as a
revelation to a number of people, I mean just just
as a general idea that this thing is is not
um without its risk. Well, the yoga community didn't want
(16:42):
people to shy away from the practice of yoga or
just kind of altogether on based on this one aspect
of it. And that happened either, And I don't think
Rod does. That wasn't his intent. No, I don't think
it was either. And she actually didn't select that title. Um,
the editors it's more clickable, right, Um, so you know
he's but anyway, that's what they took issue with. So
(17:05):
let's you know, that's a good point to sort of
launch off, launch off of and talk about what are
these myths or what are these sort of wrong headed
thinking that have come out of yoga. Well for starters, Um,
yoga has its roots in mysticism, and uh, anything with
its roots and mysticism is going to carry that up
(17:25):
through the plant, you know, up through the years. So
there remains a certain amount of mysticism at times and
in various um incarnations of yoga, even in Western society.
So it just it just depends on the h on
on who you're listening to. I mean, the claims that
have been they about yoga have have ranged from just
sort of uh, you know, simple simple claims about various
(17:49):
health benefits to being able to defeat evil and achieve
immortality and uh and survive buried alive underneath the earth,
you know. I mean so it it just runs a
game that on who you're listening to well, and the
live barrel is one that he that William jaw Jay
Broad spends a lot of time on because he says
like this is this example, um, that was around the
(18:10):
eighteen thirty seven I believe in which this one Yogi survived.
I'm gonna put that in scare quotes. Um a live
burial for forty nights and forty days. Those numbers. There's
probably a reason why those numbers were selected, right because
they have a religious uh relevance. Forty days, forty nights. Um.
(18:31):
You know, he this this uh supposedly survived this live burial,
and this really stuck with people in their minds that
that yogis had these incredible powers and that they could,
with their spiritual prowess, really become superhuman. And I'm talking
specifically about a poon Job Yogi who was a mystic
showman and who underwent this this live burial in eighteen
(18:54):
thirty seven before the maharaj and uh, you know, he
was rewarded pretty richly with a pearl necklace called bracelets
and pieces of silk, and supposedly, again the centuries were
looking after this making sure that he wasn't breaking out
and having a little midnight snack or whatnot. Um. But
this was not uncommon to have this sort of showman
(19:16):
aspect of yogis back in the day. Yeah, I mean
it was, and we'll discuss this some more in our
are are more tentric ly rooted episode, but U But yeah,
the the the yogis of old were we're kind of
they were showmen. They were kind of Carney, So it
was kind of a Carney industry, um, which is why
I find it particularly funny that Diamond Dallas page is
(19:36):
uh is benefiting from yoga we'll both physically and economically
because he's a showman. He's a showman. He comes from
pro wrestling, which is which is very much a Carney business,
and then yoga and its roots is based is basically
a Carney business with these guys going around making outrageous claims,
sort of duping the marks into thinking that they're doing
outrageous uh feats of strength or will or spirit and
(20:00):
and then getting a little pay for it. Well, and
some of them really were spiritually committed, but you know,
they did need to survive and so sometimes they would
undertake these pseudo magic. Some of them also were kidnappers. Right,
we'll talk about that protection schemes. I mean, it's really
(20:20):
when we say it was a carney business, by which
I mean it was kind of um morally suspect. Yeah,
I mean we're not exaggerating. It was broad goes into this. Uh.
People hit their children. People hit their children, People were
wary of them. And you know that some of these
yogis were considered Some of them were totally on the level.
(20:42):
Some of them were very spiritual men. Some of them
were Charlotte's okay, and so you know, the live burial
probably wasn't happening or um, the yogi had someone on
the inside helping to get out of that situation. I
think that the for that particular Punjab yogi that was
something like a six by four. Oh no, I'm thinking
(21:03):
about this is when gone. This is the guy who
started the ashram in Indian nineteen twenties to begin scientifically
studying h yoga. He actually tried this out, tried out
this live burial because he thought I really wanted. He
really wanted to prove that that yogis have this superhuman
forty days forty nights ability to be buried alive. And
(21:25):
so he re enacted the burial with another really gifted
showman yogi, who by the way, wore trunks out of
tiger skin because that's just how you know, bad this
yogi was right. Now, some of them went around naked
as well with the beard. Yeah, beard so long that
it kind of created a working um. So anyway, Goods
(21:47):
research team sealed him into a six ft long four
ft wise six foot deep chamber which was sealed in
brick and entered only by an air tight door. This
Yogi lasted only eleven hours the first time, and then
eighteen hours a second time. Did this like eleven more
times because he was like, really, I've got to find
this this one yogi who can do this. But it
(22:08):
turns out that, I mean that's impressive. Eighteen hours. Um,
eighteen hours is achievable, you know, to be in this
air tight chamber without food or water. Um, but forty
days forty nights is not. This is a huge myth. Yeah,
So we get into the same showman area that you
you see with professional illusionists, with with a Houdini or
(22:29):
what have you. Accept there's this, uh, the spiritual element
that is coated over it. The problem with it is
that when you when you have this sort of inference
of power that you could harness, then you start to
see it trickle into modern day mythology of yoga. And
Broad does a really good job of uncovering this and
talking about these these myths of weight loss that are
(22:52):
achievable through yoga. And I believe that this was um
this is because many of the studies that were erroneous
again came up and sort of suggested that you could
lose weight, and you can lose weight with yoga. I mean,
I've I've left weight with yoga. My wife lest weight
with yoga. It's it's it's certainly possible, and people do it.
(23:12):
But but it's ana aerobic, right largely unless you're doing
something like oshtanga or you're doing you know, a program
of forty minutes of sun salutations, um, you know. But
most yoga routines are not that, and they have a
ton a ton of benefits, but you're probably not if
you're gonna go for straight aerobic weight loss. Yoga is not. Yeah,
(23:35):
and if weight loss is your primary goal, then then
then then yoga should probably not be your primary weapon
in the five Yeah, let me throw some stats at this. UM.
American College of Sports Medicine recommends that exercise or straw
on fifty of their maximum oxygen uptake reserve, and Texas
State University researchers UM who are trying to get to
(23:57):
the bottom of this, found that women walking briskly on
a treadmill use about forty five of their maximum reserves,
while women doing a yoga routine used justent of the reserves. Okay,
so that right there is is sort of giving you
the math of like, well, you're not probably going to
reach the amount of calories burned to really lose weight
(24:18):
during yoga. Another two thousand and five study, this one
by the University of Wisconsin, found that their half a
sessions of yoga were burning just one and forty four calories,
which is similar to a slow walk. Okay, but with
the benefit here that that UM that a lot of
people are getting is that they're losing weight because once
(24:40):
you begin to practice yoga, you sort of slowed down
in terms of your intentions and you're thinking and what
you're doing to your body and what you're putting into
your body. So a lot of people when they begin
practicing and broad talks about this, to have this awareness
of Okay, I'm not just eating, uh, you know, stuffing
a bunch of stuff into the whole. I'm stepping it
(25:01):
into me. I'm building a new body out of this food.
It's kind of like a gateway, uh, to a better mind,
body understanding. Right right, So you all of a sudden
you just say, oh about corn dog? Those ten corn dogs?
Do I really need ten corn dogs? I don't think so.
Or you begin to fill up and you become aware
that do you no longer have these sensations of hunger
and you quit eating. And that is a huge benefit
(25:22):
of yogurt, because it does. It's gonna gonna stand weird.
But hanging out in a pose for five minutes and
feeling uncomfortable, We'll put you in a situation where you
become very intimate with the thoughts in your brain and
the sort of loops that go around in your head.
And it really is a mini meditation. Yeah, I mean
I will find myself, you know, you put myself one
of those poses and then I'll remember that I'm not
(25:44):
thinking about whatever was occupying my mind NonStop. Um, you
know previously. I mean, for example, UM, I recently had
a couple of wisdom teeth taken out, which um, and
I'm I'm in my thirties, which means that it's a
lot more in ten. It's apparently this has been my
what I've gathered because when I when I did get
(26:05):
him taken out, all these people were like, oh yeah,
I had them taken out in high school. And it's great.
You know, they you can take a few days off
and they ge some pain medication. It's no big deal.
And you know it's maybe it's not any big deal. Um,
you know when you're in you're fifteen or sixteen, Well,
when you're in your your thirties, it's it's it's awful,
and it's it's uh, it's this awful thing, this this
(26:25):
awful violation of your mouth that just sticks with you
for for for weeks to follow, and and so and
and so I'm constantly thinking about it. And then I
found that, you know, going to yoga, uh, you know,
I'll be in imposed like I'll be in um uh
pigeon pose or something you know, which, which I find
is a good one where you're you're you're all, you're
all tensed up, you're in this pose. It's yeah, yeah,
(26:47):
it's I wouldn't I don't want to describe it as uncomfortable,
but it is. You have to submit. Yeah, you're very
present in what your body is doing. And then I
would find myself just completely forgetting about what my mouth
was doing, you know, and uh, you know which I'm
not saying it allowed me to you know, erase pain
or something, but it made me forget about the thing
that I was constantly punching my brain in the face with. Well,
(27:11):
but then it's reducing your stress too, right, So I mean,
we know how the whole pain loop um and the
biofeedback works. So if you can interrupt that, which yoga
does a great job, then you can see the pain.
And a lot of people will say like, actually, there
are there are several different things. When you get in
that sort of flow, people will say that they have,
you know, this interruption of pain. And some of that
(27:33):
is music. Some people who have chronic pain UM, if
they perform music or sing um, they can they can
stop that cycle. Or yoga is another good example. Um,
So yeah, I mean what I'm saying weight loss aerobics,
that's probably not gonna be your path to to you know,
dropping twenty pounds instantly, but you know, a yoga regimen
(27:55):
is definitely going to help in the long term, just
in terms of you being able to get your head
around you know, how your body is working and what
you're doing to it. Yeah, I mean a lot of
its breathing to just becoming conscious of of everything you're
doing at a given moment. What are my limbs doing,
what is my breath doing? And again just becoming conscious
of body well and getting getting comfortable with discomfort. Right. Um.
(28:16):
Metabolism this is another thing um that comes up in
terms of weight loss or just overall fitness. UM. In
a two thousand and six study by physiologists Miasandra as Shaya,
she found that regular practitioners cut their basil metabolic rate
on average by This is excellent, right, This means that
(28:37):
you're becoming much more adept at managing stress. By gender,
it was an eight percent reduction for men in an
eighteen percent reduction for women. But this has led to
a reduction in basil metabolic rate that no longer now
requires as much food and calories to stoke metaboli. Uh,
your metabolism. Right, So in other words, when metabolism drops
(29:01):
to these degrees, the body doesn't need t corn dogs, right,
And if you continue to eat those corn dogs with
reduced basil metabolic rate, you're going to gain weight. Ah,
this is the bummer part of it. Right. So if
you you get in the habit of yoga, but you
don't necessarily break the habits of eating that are yeah,
that are happening else Yeah, and now when when? And
(29:21):
I don't know the specifically specifics of this because broad
doesn't really go into this to saying to the degree
that these people were yogis like, you know, did they
practice three hours a day or you know, twice a week.
Did they have a certain certification with a certain style
of yoga which you get into whole hour of certification
that are required. Yeah. You know, if you're doing oshtanga
(29:43):
or something that's a little bit more rigorous than you're
probably your basil metabolic rate probably isn't going to drop
quite as slow. But the point is here is that
you know, you you know, they used to think that okay,
you could do yoga just as well as dogging, and
you get your heart rate up and you'd be able
to burn as many calories. But that's not happening here.
(30:06):
But that's still this is good news because we're gonna
talk about it in a little bit. But um, lowering
your metabolism is huge hate ability, and in fact, it
would really make sense, particularly if you were a yogi
um turn of the century who couldn't find a lot
of food, who was having to sort of batten down
the hatches of energy. To to have the skill to
(30:28):
to lower your metabolism would be great, right, Yeah, yeah,
I mean you could guess you do some means of
coping with with hunger, I mean real hunger and that
you know Western I need tin corn dogs hunger, but
legitimate hunger. Okay. Another claim that comes up is oxygen Like,
if you do this this routine, your body is going
to be flush with oxygen um. And certainly you you've
(30:52):
become you become conscious more conscious of your breathing, and
as you're you're getting your heart rate up, you are
breathing more. So you can under stand where this idea
comes from, right, But it turns out that no matter
how fast or flow. You breathe, you get generally the
same amount of oxygen into your body and into your brain. Okay,
so it doesn't really matter. Yoga does not it's not
going to change the amount of oxygen that you absorb.
(31:15):
What changes, and this is actually can have several different ramifications,
is the amount of carbon dioxide in your system that
all of that breathing. And so there's something like the
cabala body breath. This is called the breath of fire
skull shining. Wait, wait, is this the one where I inhale?
I go, yeah, like you have that one? Sorry everybody,
(31:38):
but yeah, that's how it gets. And basically what you're
doing is you're taking your your belly button and try
to you're forcing it against the back of your spine,
and you're breathing really fast and now for your nose.
But your stomach is like a rubber band. It keeps
going back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.
And then I breathe that. Yeah, well that puts a
lot of carbon dioxide into your blood. That that feeling
like you're about to pass out. That's why it's not
(32:01):
necessarily it's I mean, it's not necessarily bad for you,
but of course. Um. You know, there's a whole list
of things that of the reasons why you probably shouldn't
practice it, like if you were pregnant. Um. But anyway,
that's sort of this idea of Okay, we're getting all
this oxygen. You're just replenishing your vile organs with oxygen.
That's not necessarily the case. Yeah, I mean you get
(32:23):
into situations with a lot of stuff in yoga where
you're you're putting your body in a position or you're
doing something with your breath where it allows you to
feel something that you don't normally feel, and an awareness
of your body that is not normally present. So it's
very easy then to layer some some fiction on top
(32:43):
of an experience and making into something it's not right.
And at the same time, though your body is undergoing
these these changes that are are affecting your mood. Um.
And we'll talk about that in the benefits a little
bit more. Um. I mean there there's there's real manifest
station here. Now. I don't want to want I say fiction.
I don't want to imply that putting a little a
(33:04):
layer of fiction or you know, or myth or whatever
on top of a sensation can't help you maybe understand
and empower you, uh to a sense. I don't want
to just completely discount idea serpents and chakras and what
have you. I think it's it's all, it's all valid. Well,
that's the power of storytelling, right, we talked about that,
(33:25):
putting a little power of storytelling on top of this
weird pain that is going through my leg. You know. Um,
I think it's totally fine. Now. I think we should
take a break. Yeah, we probably should. Yeah, when we
come back, we will talk about some of the risks
and then some of these incredible rewards, including those Yeah,
(33:46):
well that pose, Well, we'll talk about a potential account
of you. All right, we're back. You can you can
go into child's pose now and uh and we'll venture
into the into the second half of them. No, no,
you you stay in pigeon. Okay. Alright, So William Jay
(34:08):
broad rancor yoga community, and specifically because he talked about
some of the risks, um, when he is talking about
the risk, he's talking mainly about the neck region. Yeah,
and it's important to note here too that like like
my yoga class, the many class I go to, uh,
my teacher is really great about stressing. Hey, don't overdo it,
(34:30):
you know, come in, UM do what's comfortable for you.
Don't try to compete with yourself or with other people
in the class. Don't trying to impress anybody, and and
you know, be mindful of the risk. Not every class
is like this, and not every practitioner or potential practitioner
rather is going to be that mindful of all this.
You get me. I mean, that's that's how most of
(34:53):
these injuries happen. It seems like people come in and
they either get into a moment where I'm going to
try to impress this person or or I'm gonna do
what I feel like I should be doing and not
what my body is telling me to do. Yeah, and um,
you know William J. Brod does he he does bring
that up. He says, there's this sort of neophyte problem
to it, right, because if you don't really know how
(35:14):
to get out of the poses and how it affects
you yet, then you probably shouldn't try some that that
um are more extreme or UM put more extreme pressure
on your body. And UM, like I was telling you about,
I was in a class and I go to I
take close of the y m c A. So you
get people that will come in like forty five minutes
(35:35):
into a class and they'll be advised, Hey, it could
be dangerous if you start a yoga class forty five
minutes in and then you know this. I watch somebody,
like an overweight person in socks go up into wheel
and they did not snap in half and have to
be carried off to the hospital. This time you can. Yeah,
wheel is a backward bend and it's basically going up.
(35:57):
I think sure everybody is familiar with the image of
the ridge right where you're on your back and you
go up into bridge. This five earls can snap in
and out of this, no problem. Um, But it's it's
a it's really um. It's it takes a lot of
effort to get your body up in that position and
you're essentially your head is upside down, your neck is
(36:18):
crooked back quite a bit. And this is what Broad
is talking about. He's saying that these poses that really
bend your neck. You know, these ninety degree angles are
putting a lot of pressure on your cervical vertebrae. And
what a lot of people don't realize is that there
are vertebral arteries that are basically looping themselves within this
(36:39):
framework of vertebrae up in your neck. So it's like
sort of this intricate um snaking of these arteries. So
when you're bending your head back that much, you're putting
a tremendous amount of pressure e pressuring pressure. Um. And
so he's talking about in poses like headstand. I think
everybody's familiar with that, shoulders stand and which you swing
(37:02):
your your legs up over your head. Yeah, kind of
like the bicycle thing that you would do in elementary
school gym. Yeah, if you're in your back um wheel again.
And then something called plow and plow is that Actually
when I just said shoulder stand, I was just um
talking about plow um. When you're in shoulder chain, you
just swing your legs over. Oh yes, okay, yeah, so
(37:25):
they go over your head. So basically anything that puts
torque on the neck. So again these are not well
known arteries. And the problem here is that everybody is
structured differently. So your your the way that your arteries
loop in there and the way that your cervical vertebrae
are are going to be different from another person. In
other words, or some people don't have much room in there. Yeah,
(37:47):
and that's the thing. You go into a class like
this and people start going to a pose, it's it's
easy to fall into the thinking, oh, that's what our
bodies do, that's what my body should do. But everyone's
body is different. Sounds cliche, It is cliche, but it's true. Yeah,
he says, like, there's no m r I machine when
you go through the doors of yoga studios, so it's
not like you know exactly where you're the oddities might
(38:08):
be in your framework. Yeah, I mean, on a very
simple level, not everybody can touch their toes. Not everybody
should touch theirs, you know. And uh, when you get
into much more um, when you when you get into
this neck region, when you get in the vertebrae, um,
you can have potentially devastating results from pushing things too far. Yeah.
In fact, what he's talking about is, Okay, let's say
(38:30):
you tork those arteries and then you tear them. Um,
you get some blood clots there, right, come on the post,
the clot sales up to your brain and you have
a stroke. That's the problem. Now he's saying that this
is very rare, so we shouldn't. Yeah, we shouldn't all
you know be uh, you know, like, oh, this is
gonna happen tomorrow. It is very rare. He's saying, you know,
something like three cases a year, and of those three
(38:53):
d cases, less than five result and death. Um. But
he is saying that it's something that people should be
aware of. Personally, I don't do a headstand or Childer's
stand or any of that anymore, and I haven't for
about five years now. UM. But he the problem here
is that, um, you know, case after case of someone
(39:14):
in their twenties and their thirties coming out of a
pose and then having a stroke anywhere from you know
then to thirty six hours later gives you this gray
area of well did that really cause the stroke? Because
you know, correlation is not causation, as we know. But
he is saying that the problem here is that we
don't have you know, medical Um science hasn't really said
(39:38):
let's study these strokes in yoga in earnest and try
to figure out what's happening. But he's saying there's enough
cases of really healthy people practicing yoga who have had
strokes that we should stop and we should look at
the evidence here of how tenuous this artery is um
and how we should respect it a little bit more. Yeah,
I mean respect is respecting the body and respecting the
(40:00):
limitations and fragility of the body is important, because that's
another thing about coming into something like yoga if you
if you haven't, And yoga appeals to a wide number
of people, but it often appeals to people who have
not been all that physically active, who do not have
a lot of experience or any experience with sports or
athletic related injuries. I mean I was, I'm the same
(40:20):
way like prior to yoga, my main the main thing
I ever did with swimming, which is very low impact.
You know, I never injured myself swimming. Uh, maybe I
balked my head, you know on the concrete once or twice,
but that I can remember. But but for the most part,
you're not gonna strain something or be limping around after
you've done some laps. Uh. You going to yoga, it's
(40:40):
a different story. And if you don't have experience with
straining too hard and busting something, you're inevitably gonna end
up on that, you know, in that class where you
you do go a little too far and then for
the first time you're you learned what it's like to
to to to to suffer you know, sports or athletic injury. Okay,
so into that point, I'm gonna bring up bit Chrome
and I'm not picking on Bickram, and Broad is not
(41:02):
picking on Bickram either. He's just saying that when you
heat a room to a hundred and four degrees hundred
and three degrees degrees um, what you're doing is not
only are you making everybody sweat um last night's dinner
out um, which always you know, culminates into a great
funk in the in the yoga room, um, but what
(41:23):
you're doing is is you're creating an environment in which
the joints, the muscles all get very loose, and all
of a sudden you feel like, oh I can do
all these incredible poses. I am gumby. But he's saying
that what happens is that you are pushing your body
to its outer limits. That in normal conditions, in a
normal conditioned room, um, with normal temperatures, your body would
(41:44):
be telling you, hey, this is too much, don't do this.
So he's saying that that is very injurious in a
sense because people are going beyond their odder limits. Like
my teacher always stresses that if you're you're you're in
a posed each should not hurt. You know, there's that
level of I am stretching, I am You know that
(42:05):
that I'm I'm that that I'm engaging the muscles and
I'm engaging my my bones. But I should not feel
like I am hurting my bones and my muscles, because
that is a clear sign you're pushing the boundaries and
you're just you. You know, you're potentially just a slight
tweak away from an injury. Yeah, this has when ligaments
and Carl nch get torn right and over and over again.
(42:27):
Too broad. His said that he's seen this um in
studies with with hot yoga. Um, you know, you you
run a risk of dislocations and springs. I mean it
just goes on and on. And I have taken hot yoga.
I've I have actually really enjoyed it once I got
over the fact that I felt like I was in
a jungle trying to survive to my next breath. But um,
(42:47):
but I did understand, like, you know what, I need
to take it easy here because I do feel like
I could just pop up into wheel, you know, in
two seconds here, and what is that doing to my
body under these extreme circumstances. Um? Okay, so enough with
the downer stuff. Let's talk about telomeres and all these
(43:08):
really incredible things that yoga does. I mean, we're not
just talking about strength, right, because you're you're using your
own body weight to to increase your muscle mass right
when you're in these poses. Um, it's creating endurance, balanced flexibility. Um.
But also something called autonomic control. Okay, for starters, we
have blood pressure. We have seen in studies that yogis
(43:28):
are able to manipulate, um, control over their blood pressure, which,
as we all know, that's a that's a good thing.
I mean, and been able to want to say, manipulated
bring it down right, not not rocking it up. Well.
Hence the again this idea that you know, some yogis
are were supernatural, um and could do these superhuman strengths. Um.
(43:49):
But here's a here is actually a sort of superhuman thing. Um,
there's a mind over matter example. UM. Researchers show that yogis,
or at least one yogi in Broad's book, could create
a gap up to eleven degrees across this palm, a
gap in difference of times between his body in his palm. Um.
(44:10):
So this is why scientists have begun to take interest
in Yogi's because through the scientific lens, you can really
start to see parallels to animal hibernation. We've talked about
this like suspended animation. How can how can we harness
this mind body connection to manipulate our bodies to do
really things that they're not supposed to do or superhuman
(44:31):
things like this. Yeah, and so if I mean, if
you're you're able to adjust blood pressure, I mean we're
talking about improving cardiovasca health as as a whole. Uh,
and this can affect such factors as you know, um
it's high blood pressure, blood sugar, cholesterol, um, and and
even you know, tinker with the proteins that involved in
blood clouding on a beneficial way. So so that's good.
(44:54):
And the other just really incredible thing that I found,
um in in Broad's book was this idea of telomeres
and extending them. Yeah, we've we've mentioned before telomeres and telomeres.
This gets down to these little um like DNA shoelaces
that kind eventually begin to unravel and as they unravel,
thus is the process of aging. Things start to go downhill.
(45:18):
Your body starts to suck and uh that's all she wrote. So, uh,
we we have seen that that yoga, of course reduces stress,
and then in reducing stress, one can actually reduce the
unraveling of those telomeres and the eventual suckage of said body. Yeah,
because it turns out that stress is one of the
things that erodes the tips of of UM DNA, right,
(45:41):
this is and this is what tel moras, the enzyme
can come in and deliver more genetic information and actually
extend those tips. So stuff like disease, um, you know,
chronic stress that's going to whittle away at our biological
clocks because that's really what telomeres are, these biological clocks
that are kicking. So if you can lump more material
(46:05):
and it extend these DNA tips, then this is a
sort of fountain of youth. And when I say this, UM,
I don't mean to say like, oh, you know, you
know indefinitely, if you just do yoga, we're all going
to live for the rest of our lives. Um. But
it does show that yoga can slow biological aging and
a Harvard physician and health superstar Dean Ornish. I'm sure
(46:27):
a lot of people have heard of him, looked at
twenty four men who took up his health regimen. The
subjects were aged fifty to eighty and did yoga for
an hour days, six days a week over three months,
and they had their tel Mara's levels. These ensign levels
taken before and after the study. And in addition to
the decline in the cholesterol, as you say, blood pressure,
in general anxiety, it was found that the post yoga
(46:49):
subjects tell Moray's levels shot up by that to me
is wow, I mean, whoa, That's a reason to do
yoga right there. Yeah. And then there's also little something
called gabba, which is not not yogaba kaba, but the
neuro transmitter that is tied in with the heightened moods.
If you've ever been a supplement junkie, then you've probably
(47:12):
run across GAPA pills at your local health food store
and it's a low levels of GABBA have been linked
to depression and uh so Broad reported that scientists from
Boston University School of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, and McLean
Psychiatric Hospital found that the brains of yoga practitioners showed
increases in GABBA levels um. And apparently it was more so. Uh,
(47:34):
it was more prevalent in more experienced yoga practitioners as well. Yeah, yeah,
it's something uh rise in the regular practitioners, and then
in newbies it was just rise. But that is still
a significant amount of gabba neurotransmitters hanging out in your brain. Yeah.
Less stress, I mean less stress is less stress, So
(47:57):
that's great, but less stress less less uh, decaying of
the Tell me here's longer life. It's all good. Yeah. Yeah.
And then here's one more thing to throw at you,
because I know, I feel like we're starting to sound
like a Ginzoo NiFe commercial, but here we have. It's
the immune system. Um. Also it benefits from yoga. The
vadgist nerve which runs from the brain stem to the
(48:18):
torso um. And by the way, that just has etymological
roots with vagabond, right, because it's a sort of vagabond
of your body, this this nerve. UM. We know that
the nerve central action is to regulate and slow the heart,
this nerve, but more recently we found out that also
regulates the immune system and it helps to fight inflammation,
(48:40):
and so there have been studies with people who suffer
from rheumatoid arthritis who have really found that poses that
flex their spine and stimulate the Vadgish nerve are finding
a lot of um, a lot of benefits to being
able to walk without pain and all these great things.
And of course it's nature's viagra. Yes, yeah, And we'll
(49:04):
we'll get into the the sexual benefits of yoga in
our additional podcast that we're doing this week on yoga,
which was titled Yoga Sex Magic, So tune into that
one if you want to hear more about it. But
but studies have shown that yoga does lead to improvements
in one's sex life. So yeah, we'll leave it at
(49:25):
that in your imagination. So we're gonna since we're going
a little longer, I'm gonna skip listener mail on this episode,
but I do want I do think we should leave
everyone with with some encouragement, uh, some added encouragement for yoga. Um.
And we're both yoga advocates, so we're gonna advocate it here.
And I'm just gonna say, if if yoga sounds at
(49:47):
all interesting, give it a try, and not just one
try give it a couple because the first time I
took yoga, I did not like it, and I do
not think I would have gone back had my wife
not been interested in trying get some were I mean,
it's just it's not necessarily gonna grab you that first time.
But but if you know, give it a chance, and
(50:07):
give various styles a chance. Like I said, maybe Black
Death yoga is you're there, are definital yoga is your thing. Yeah,
maybe diamon Dallas Page just yoga is your thing or
or you know, and it's all gateway. Maybe you get
a taste of it and then you find something that's
really more suited for what you want. But there's a
lot out there on the buffet. Yeah, and I know
that I love my studio because they cater to pretty
(50:27):
much everyone under the sun. So if you have some
physical limitations, there's cheer yoga, there's um yoga for depression
and anxiety relation yoga. There's there's yoga for veterans actually
as well in my studio, which is great, um Nato yoga.
There's post Nato yoga. There's you know, yoga for for
mothers in their their their their infants, so there's there's
(50:48):
a wide variety of stuff out there. So yoga for magicians, Yeah, yeah, probably,
I'm not gonna doubt anywhere at this point. Um, but yeah,
look around and you know, and if and if yoga
definitely isn't your thing, you know, find something some sort
of activity out there. Um. If nothing else, just try
to think a little bit bit about your breathing during
(51:09):
the daily life and see where it takes it. Let's
do it now, Okay, So where can you find us?
You can find us on Facebook where we are stuff
to Blow your Mind, and you can also find us
on Twitter where our handle is blow the Mind. And
you can also send us a line at blow the
Mind at discovery dot com for moral this and thousands
(51:37):
of other topics. Does it have stuff works dot com
Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff
Works dot Com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to ball your Mind.
My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas. What
are we talking about today, Julie, Well, before we start
talking about some yoga, have something to say. What's that all?
(00:29):
I never can go that. I like how your own
has kind of like it has kind of a twang
at the beginning of like kind of sounds like a
Jonas Janis Joplin kind of an home Yeah, my mom, Ye,
I'm right, mom, Okay, yeah, yeah, that's we We are
going to be talking about yoga and and uh, not
(00:52):
just the explosion of yoga in the West, but um
about some of the things that have come to light
recently about the ben if it's yoga and I guess
sound of what you could say are risks, Yeah, yeah,
and it's uh, we should we should point out here
and all of this that neither of us are experts
in yoga by any stretch of imagination. However, yoga is
(01:14):
a part of both of our lives. How long how
long have you been taking yoga and practicing? Um about
fifteen years now? Wow? Ye see, so you've you've really
been at it. I've My wife and I started taking
it two or three years ago, so we're still fairly
new to it. But it's really it's really become an
important part of our lives and an important part of
(01:35):
my life. I feel like it I've benefited from it
in that I'm in I feel like I'm in better
shape physically from it. I feel like it aids my relaxation. Um,
I can't count the number of times where I've gone
into yoga, maybe in a bit of a bit of
maybe not a full on huff, but you know, I'll
be a little stressed out at the end of the day.
(01:56):
I've been trying to you know, at the end of
a Tuesday, I've been trying to get stuff wrapped up,
us specifically wrapped up often for this podcast, you know,
getting getting research under wraps. And then then I go
to yoga and I'm all kind of a bundle of
nerves and all these thoughts going, you know, this way
and that, and then I come out of it and
I'm just in a different state of mind. I'm much
more relaxed and and uh and focused state of mind. Yeah,
(02:18):
I mean, that's the thing. About yoga. It is transformative,
and I think that that's why it has taken off
so fully, particularly since the nineteen nineties, because people have
discovered that even if they're a casual user of yoga
so to speak, um, you know, and they do a
power yoga or a big room hot yoga, they're going
to find some sort of the effects there and say, wow,
(02:39):
for for a space there, maybe even just for five minutes,
my body completely relaxed, and more importantly, my mind, uh
you know, followed in line and I had a bit
of a peaceful moment. And that is the secret behind yoga, right,
this this sort of tranquility that it promotes in our minds,
in our bodies. I keep coming back to our Centaur
(03:03):
episode where well, I mean they could, it would be interesting.
I'm not sure what kind of poses they would get into,
because you don't think of horses is really being a
big contortionist, that kind of stiff legged um. And you know,
you horse enthusiasts can correct me if I'm wrong on that,
But you don't really see him doing a lot of
poses out there. So yeah, I feel like a center
(03:24):
would be limited. But but in our center, but podcast
we pointed out the the the idea that modern humans
we often think of ourselves, we think of the mind
body connection as a rider on a horse. We are
the rider, or whether our brain is the is the
rider and the horses our body and our horse is stubborn,
(03:45):
um lazy, their problems with it, and our mind is
in its own thing, and then the mind the rider
inevitably gets angry with the horse, and there's this conflict
between the two and uh. In various philosopher's New Age
fingers have have made the argument that we are essentially
a center, that we're really this mind and body, this
(04:06):
this single entity combined of the two, and the more
we're in touch with that, the easier time will have.
And yoga, in my experience, really feels like um. It
underlines that that vision of the mind body connection. You know,
because you because like I said, you go into the yoga,
you're you're just all mind a lot of the times,
(04:27):
or maybe you're you're all mind with like one other
thing like oh, your knees bothering your your your your
teeth are bothering you. You're you know, whatever happens to
be the one part of your body that's giving you
the most, that's getting the most attention at the time
you enter that in that room with that mind body connection,
and when you leave the ideas that you're more in
(04:48):
touch with the body. Right, that's the idea of yoga.
So that's a union between the mind and the body.
Um so. And and that's what we will see played
out actually in sign typic studies when we we speak
a little bit more about that later, um, But we
should probably talk about how yoga came to become so
(05:09):
popular here in the West and um why it arrived
at our our doorsteps. Um. Particularly I'm thinking about a
woman named Indra Devi and her her real name or
her say her real name, but her name is was
Eugenie Peterson, and she was a popular Indian star. She
studied under Jagannath g Gune, really important guy in the
(05:32):
history of yoga and actually trying to um put some
scientific method behind this and and and scientific rigors to
examine yoga and its benefits. And he actually established an
ashram in India devoted to the scientific study, and he
was an advisor to Gandhi. But anyway, Indra Devi studied
with him, and she actually moved to Hollywood and taught
(05:55):
yoga to other actors, including Glorious Wantson, Greta Garbo and
Mary Land in Rome. She was really the first yoga
teacher to the stars, but people don't normally associate yoga
with her. It's more with our friends the Beatles. Yes.
In fact, we have an article on the Sunhouse stuff works.
Did the Beatles induce yoga to Western civilization? Which is
(06:18):
a kind of a yes and no article, But they
does go into George Harrison who studied satar under Rabbi
Shankar in India, and he sort of became involved in
um different aspects of yoga and meditation, particularly with a
yogi named the Maharishi. Yes. And and he's definitely the
(06:39):
name that that tends to stick in people's minds when
they think of of of importing yoga into Western culture. Yeah.
And so you know, actually you can see how that
influenced their their musical careers, not just even their personal careers,
but you can hear the music from that time, um,
and not just the satar, but these these different melodies
that are Eastern melodies, um that sort of pervaded music
(07:01):
at the time. But anyway, so they sort of brought
that UM, these ideas of meditation and trans transcendental meditation
in particular to the US, and the maharishi is someone
who a lot of people began to follow, especially UM
through TM transcendental meditation. UM. So today we have twenty
million people in the US alone who are practicing yoga. Yeah,
(07:24):
and they're practicing a variety of different types of yoga.
We're talking about this the other day. Yoga in a sense,
modern yoga in the in the States and Western culture.
It has this kind of viral aspect to it where
it seems to spread from carrier to carrier and UH
and it kind of adapts itself to each new host.
(07:45):
So that so that after a while you have these
different versions of this endless variety of yoga that's UH
is branching out and evolving from patient zero. UM, who
I guess would have been color responsive. Um. So, so
just to name a few you, UM, there's a whole
list of these right at the front of The Science
of Yoga by William J. Broad, which we are basing
(08:06):
a lot of this podcast on. By the way, this
is a really great book. We cannot um cover in
its entirety because we would talk for ten hours. But um,
but we are going to touch on some of the highlights. Yeah,
so we'll touch on it some more and and certainly
pick up that book if you're interested in this. But
at the very beginning, he does a great job of
just laying out like some brief overview material, and he
mentions a number of the styles of yoga. The first
(08:28):
one he mentions any sara, which is which is actually
the one that I tend to practice. It's a great one,
by the way. Yeah, yeah, I find it. You know,
it's nice, it's kind of it's flowy as an upbeat philosophical,
philosophical side to it, you know, and uh, I've benefited
from it. Which which variety do you tend to I
started out with my anger, which is really uh, I
(08:50):
guess you would call it precision yoga. It's very specific.
You hold the post for a long time. The idea
is that you want to get the postures right before you,
you know, really sort of launch yourself into yoga. And
um half of course, which is sort of a catch
all for for a general yoga. UM, that's actually very
old yoga based on tantra yoga, which we'll talk about
(09:11):
yea and in a separate podcast. Yeah, but yeah, so
that those are a few, and then there's a tanga,
there's a bickram or hot Yoga, Hot Yoga TM by
the way trademarked it. Um there's Kundalini, Vanyasa, all sorts here,
power yoga. UM. I actually saw not too long ago
(09:32):
a class that was I think it's like death metal yoga.
What I'm like kidding, it's get the Young Blood Gallery.
Really they do it to to death metal. They do
it to death metal, is my understanding. UM. So, as
you say, like there's each iteration brings with it a
bit of flavor from from that person. Which yoga for real? Men,
(09:53):
that's the one we're talking about. The Diamond Dallas Page,
the former wrestler has been advocating. And you know, you
can get into these various styles and you can make
some criticism or even legitimate criticism of some of these
styles based on on science or tradition or you know,
or what have you. Certainly some of them are are
(10:13):
more in touch with the roots of yoga than others. Um.
But it's it's it's adapting itself to new styles that
like the people who would be interested in Diamond Dallas pages,
yoga class or yoga DVDs or whatever he's selling, are
rather different from the people that would necessarily be up
for any sorry yoga and uh and so in a
(10:34):
broad sense, I'm totally in favor that, you know, well,
I think the cool thing about all these different branches
of it, are these different styles, is that you do
get a fuller understanding of what yoga is. Even if
you are doing something like power yoga or death yoga, UM,
jazz yoga, jes jess Han's yoga UM, you know you're
gonna take something away from anger yoga and a different
(10:56):
thing from any sara and And it doesn't mean that
one is more correct over the other. It's just it's
very different. Maybe not the death metals so much, but
that is what makes it such an interesting practice, but
also so incredibly difficult to study scientifically, right because it's
not like you're standardizing it and you're saying everybody do
these poses only sure bick Rum, right, because I think
(11:20):
that is actually he's got those uh poses trademarked. But
but you do have all these different things going on,
so it's it's hard to wholesales say Okay, we're gonna
study yoga because it's just this one thing and it's
not the other reason why it's hard to studies because
big farmer really isn't all that interested. Yeah. William J.
(11:41):
Brod does a great job of stressing this in the
book that all Right. So who funds research, specifically who
funds medical research? A lot of time it is big
pharmaceutical companies who are interested in finding that next big drug, which,
on one hand, they want to find the next big
drug that's gonna be very beneficial for human health, but
they also want to find the next big drug that's
gonna make them a lot of money. I mean, it's
(12:02):
that's just the nature of the beast. Uh, say what
you will about it, but that's how it works. So
when you're looking at yoga, um, with very few exceptions,
you're not looking at something that can be turned into
a product or a pill. I mean, unless a major
pharmaceutical company wanted to open a studio. You know, it's
it's not the kind of thing that's gonna gonna have
(12:22):
an immediate pharmaceutical tie in or benefit. So no, you're right,
because it's not like you can take this pill that's
gonna lower your cortisol levels, your stress hormone levels, increased
testosterone levels in some cases, um, you know, reduce your
metabolic rate. I mean that you're right, there's all these
different things going on in yoga that you just couldn't
(12:43):
take a pill for. So hence the disinterest on the subject.
So you see, you see plenty of studies. They've been
countless studies. I mean, I'm not countless, but there have
been thousands of studies just in over the past decade
or so people looking into yoga signs of yoga. But
it's often more of a side product. It's not necessarily
(13:04):
like a it's not like a huge extensive of study.
In most cases, it's not one of these things where
you have, you know, hundreds or dozens even of of
individuals that are being subjected to REDI study. In some cases,
they're they're looking at one individual. There, there's not we're
not talking about deep, um inquisitive scientific studies. In many cases,
(13:27):
they're more sort of side studies to researchers, core funded interests. Yeah,
and William J. Rod does bring up the point that
a lot of the studies that he came across, and
I think he looked at what a hundred years worth
of studies were conducted in India, and so there are
a lot of them are a little known studies. Yeah,
they're not necessarily the kind of thing you can just
(13:48):
do a search for and then purchase the study for,
you know, or yeah, whatever outrageous price they're charging on
the UH in the journals. But yeah, you'll be outside
of of easily obtainable UM medical documents and what. I
think that just as a side note that William J.
Broad did a really good job of trying to bring
(14:09):
all these different studies to light, because he is talking
about a hundred years worth of studies, some of them
being conducted during a time when there was an m
R I or various different technologies available to us. And
then he actually went through some of that material and
myth busted some of the erroneous studies that came up
because of this idea of you know, there weren't there
(14:29):
wasn't double blind studies and some of them, um so
some of the conclusions that were drawing were wrong. Um
or just trying to go and sort things out and
look at other studies that try to corroborate these older
studies later on. That is a massive amount of work.
So I did want to bring that up because, um,
you know, when this book came out, there was a
lot of um rancor from the yoga community because he
(14:53):
does talk about some things that may be difficult to
hear right now, um, in terms of the risk of
yoga that we'll talk about later. You saw people responding
to him on on some of these message boards and
these yoga publications where they were just like, like, why
does he hate yoga so much? Why he practicing it
for forty years? Yeah, he was just I mean, he's
a science writer who has practice yoga for years and years,
(15:16):
like since the seventies. I believe it's it's just it
is and has been a part of his life for
a long time. And he had been wanting to bring
these two together too. I mean a lot of a
lot of the questions that he tackles in this book
are things that that he'd been wondering about, but he
didn't really have you know, he hadn't taken the time
to actually study them and do the research and find
out what science can tell us about yoga. Yeah, and
(15:37):
you can actually tell him this book, you've read it
from from cover to cover, you can tell that he
loves and respects it and does it as much as
possible and will continue to do it. Um that My
hope is that ten more books respawned from this book,
clarifying the science even further. A lot of the negative
stuff that can out really was wasn't as much the book.
I think that that New York Times article that that
(15:57):
broad also wrote that post the New York Times, and
it was the title of it, how yoga can wreck
your body exactly. That's it. And it's one of those
things you know that makes the rounds, it shows up
and feels Facebook feeds. In many cases people don't even
necessarily read that kind of thing, you know, it goes
that gets just shot around an email and the instant
messages sending is yoga is dangerous. This thing that you
(16:19):
told us was was easy that everybody could do, that
everyone could benefit from, and it was low impact and
it was all you know, hippie dippy and care free
could kill me. Uh And and that comes as a
revelation to a number of people, I mean just just
as a general idea that this thing is is not
um without its risk. Well, the yoga community didn't want
(16:42):
people to shy away from the practice of yoga or
just kind of altogether on based on this one aspect
of it. And that happened either, And I don't think
Rod does. That wasn't his intent. No, I don't think
it was either. And she actually didn't select that title. Um,
the editors it's more clickable, right, Um, so you know
he's but anyway, that's what they took issue with. So
(17:05):
let's you know, that's a good point to sort of
launch off, launch off of and talk about what are
these myths or what are these sort of wrong headed
thinking that have come out of yoga. Well for starters, Um,
yoga has its roots in mysticism, and uh, anything with
its roots and mysticism is going to carry that up
(17:25):
through the plant, you know, up through the years. So
there remains a certain amount of mysticism at times and
in various um incarnations of yoga, even in Western society.
So it just it just depends on the h on
on who you're listening to. I mean, the claims that
have been they about yoga have have ranged from just
sort of uh, you know, simple simple claims about various
(17:49):
health benefits to being able to defeat evil and achieve
immortality and uh and survive buried alive underneath the earth,
you know. I mean so it it just runs a
game that on who you're listening to well, and the
live barrel is one that he that William jaw Jay
Broad spends a lot of time on because he says
like this is this example, um, that was around the
(18:10):
eighteen thirty seven I believe in which this one Yogi survived.
I'm gonna put that in scare quotes. Um a live
burial for forty nights and forty days. Those numbers. There's
probably a reason why those numbers were selected, right because
they have a religious uh relevance. Forty days, forty nights. Um.
(18:31):
You know, he this this uh supposedly survived this live burial,
and this really stuck with people in their minds that
that yogis had these incredible powers and that they could,
with their spiritual prowess, really become superhuman. And I'm talking
specifically about a poon Job Yogi who was a mystic
showman and who underwent this this live burial in eighteen
(18:54):
thirty seven before the maharaj and uh, you know, he
was rewarded pretty richly with a pearl necklace called bracelets
and pieces of silk, and supposedly, again the centuries were
looking after this making sure that he wasn't breaking out
and having a little midnight snack or whatnot. Um. But
this was not uncommon to have this sort of showman
(19:16):
aspect of yogis back in the day. Yeah, I mean
it was, and we'll discuss this some more in our
are are more tentric ly rooted episode, but U But yeah,
the the the yogis of old were we're kind of
they were showmen. They were kind of Carney, So it
was kind of a Carney industry, um, which is why
I find it particularly funny that Diamond Dallas page is
(19:36):
uh is benefiting from yoga we'll both physically and economically
because he's a showman. He's a showman. He comes from
pro wrestling, which is which is very much a Carney business,
and then yoga and its roots is based is basically
a Carney business with these guys going around making outrageous claims,
sort of duping the marks into thinking that they're doing
outrageous uh feats of strength or will or spirit and
(20:00):
and then getting a little pay for it. Well, and
some of them really were spiritually committed, but you know,
they did need to survive and so sometimes they would
undertake these pseudo magic. Some of them also were kidnappers. Right,
we'll talk about that protection schemes. I mean, it's really
(20:20):
when we say it was a carney business, by which
I mean it was kind of um morally suspect. Yeah,
I mean we're not exaggerating. It was broad goes into this. Uh.
People hit their children. People hit their children, People were
wary of them. And you know that some of these
yogis were considered Some of them were totally on the level.
(20:42):
Some of them were very spiritual men. Some of them
were Charlotte's okay, and so you know, the live burial
probably wasn't happening or um, the yogi had someone on
the inside helping to get out of that situation. I
think that the for that particular Punjab yogi that was
something like a six by four. Oh no, I'm thinking
(21:03):
about this is when gone. This is the guy who
started the ashram in Indian nineteen twenties to begin scientifically
studying h yoga. He actually tried this out, tried out
this live burial because he thought I really wanted. He
really wanted to prove that that yogis have this superhuman
forty days forty nights ability to be buried alive. And
(21:25):
so he re enacted the burial with another really gifted
showman yogi, who by the way, wore trunks out of
tiger skin because that's just how you know, bad this
yogi was right. Now, some of them went around naked
as well with the beard. Yeah, beard so long that
it kind of created a working um. So anyway, Goods
(21:47):
research team sealed him into a six ft long four
ft wise six foot deep chamber which was sealed in
brick and entered only by an air tight door. This
Yogi lasted only eleven hours the first time, and then
eighteen hours a second time. Did this like eleven more
times because he was like, really, I've got to find
this this one yogi who can do this. But it
(22:08):
turns out that, I mean that's impressive. Eighteen hours. Um,
eighteen hours is achievable, you know, to be in this
air tight chamber without food or water. Um, but forty
days forty nights is not. This is a huge myth. Yeah,
So we get into the same showman area that you
you see with professional illusionists, with with a Houdini or
(22:29):
what have you. Accept there's this, uh, the spiritual element
that is coated over it. The problem with it is
that when you when you have this sort of inference
of power that you could harness, then you start to
see it trickle into modern day mythology of yoga. And
Broad does a really good job of uncovering this and
talking about these these myths of weight loss that are
(22:52):
achievable through yoga. And I believe that this was um
this is because many of the studies that were erroneous
again came up and sort of suggested that you could
lose weight, and you can lose weight with yoga. I mean,
I've I've left weight with yoga. My wife lest weight
with yoga. It's it's it's certainly possible, and people do it.
(23:12):
But but it's ana aerobic, right largely unless you're doing
something like oshtanga or you're doing you know, a program
of forty minutes of sun salutations, um, you know. But
most yoga routines are not that, and they have a
ton a ton of benefits, but you're probably not if
you're gonna go for straight aerobic weight loss. Yoga is not. Yeah,
(23:35):
and if weight loss is your primary goal, then then
then then yoga should probably not be your primary weapon
in the five Yeah, let me throw some stats at this. UM.
American College of Sports Medicine recommends that exercise or straw
on fifty of their maximum oxygen uptake reserve, and Texas
State University researchers UM who are trying to get to
(23:57):
the bottom of this, found that women walking briskly on
a treadmill use about forty five of their maximum reserves,
while women doing a yoga routine used justent of the reserves. Okay,
so that right there is is sort of giving you
the math of like, well, you're not probably going to
reach the amount of calories burned to really lose weight
(24:18):
during yoga. Another two thousand and five study, this one
by the University of Wisconsin, found that their half a
sessions of yoga were burning just one and forty four calories,
which is similar to a slow walk. Okay, but with
the benefit here that that UM that a lot of
people are getting is that they're losing weight because once
(24:40):
you begin to practice yoga, you sort of slowed down
in terms of your intentions and you're thinking and what
you're doing to your body and what you're putting into
your body. So a lot of people when they begin
practicing and broad talks about this, to have this awareness
of Okay, I'm not just eating, uh, you know, stuffing
a bunch of stuff into the whole. I'm stepping it
(25:01):
into me. I'm building a new body out of this food.
It's kind of like a gateway, uh, to a better mind,
body understanding. Right right, So you all of a sudden
you just say, oh about corn dog? Those ten corn dogs?
Do I really need ten corn dogs? I don't think so.
Or you begin to fill up and you become aware
that do you no longer have these sensations of hunger
and you quit eating. And that is a huge benefit
(25:22):
of yogurt, because it does. It's gonna gonna stand weird.
But hanging out in a pose for five minutes and
feeling uncomfortable, We'll put you in a situation where you
become very intimate with the thoughts in your brain and
the sort of loops that go around in your head.
And it really is a mini meditation. Yeah, I mean
I will find myself, you know, you put myself one
of those poses and then I'll remember that I'm not
(25:44):
thinking about whatever was occupying my mind NonStop. Um, you
know previously. I mean, for example, UM, I recently had
a couple of wisdom teeth taken out, which um, and
I'm I'm in my thirties, which means that it's a
lot more in ten. It's apparently this has been my
what I've gathered because when I when I did get
(26:05):
him taken out, all these people were like, oh yeah,
I had them taken out in high school. And it's great.
You know, they you can take a few days off
and they ge some pain medication. It's no big deal.
And you know it's maybe it's not any big deal. Um,
you know when you're in you're fifteen or sixteen, Well,
when you're in your your thirties, it's it's it's awful,
and it's it's uh, it's this awful thing, this this
(26:25):
awful violation of your mouth that just sticks with you
for for for weeks to follow, and and so and
and so I'm constantly thinking about it. And then I
found that, you know, going to yoga, uh, you know,
I'll be in imposed like I'll be in um uh
pigeon pose or something you know, which, which I find
is a good one where you're you're you're all, you're
all tensed up, you're in this pose. It's yeah, yeah,
(26:47):
it's I wouldn't I don't want to describe it as uncomfortable,
but it is. You have to submit. Yeah, you're very
present in what your body is doing. And then I
would find myself just completely forgetting about what my mouth
was doing, you know, and uh, you know which I'm
not saying it allowed me to you know, erase pain
or something, but it made me forget about the thing
that I was constantly punching my brain in the face with. Well,
(27:11):
but then it's reducing your stress too, right, So I mean,
we know how the whole pain loop um and the
biofeedback works. So if you can interrupt that, which yoga
does a great job, then you can see the pain.
And a lot of people will say like, actually, there
are there are several different things. When you get in
that sort of flow, people will say that they have,
you know, this interruption of pain. And some of that
(27:33):
is music. Some people who have chronic pain UM, if
they perform music or sing um, they can they can
stop that cycle. Or yoga is another good example. Um,
So yeah, I mean what I'm saying weight loss aerobics,
that's probably not gonna be your path to to you know,
dropping twenty pounds instantly, but you know, a yoga regimen
(27:55):
is definitely going to help in the long term, just
in terms of you being able to get your head
around you know, how your body is working and what
you're doing to it. Yeah, I mean a lot of
its breathing to just becoming conscious of of everything you're
doing at a given moment. What are my limbs doing,
what is my breath doing? And again just becoming conscious
of body well and getting getting comfortable with discomfort. Right. Um.
(28:16):
Metabolism this is another thing um that comes up in
terms of weight loss or just overall fitness. UM. In
a two thousand and six study by physiologists Miasandra as Shaya,
she found that regular practitioners cut their basil metabolic rate
on average by This is excellent, right, This means that
(28:37):
you're becoming much more adept at managing stress. By gender,
it was an eight percent reduction for men in an
eighteen percent reduction for women. But this has led to
a reduction in basil metabolic rate that no longer now
requires as much food and calories to stoke metaboli. Uh,
your metabolism. Right, So in other words, when metabolism drops
(29:01):
to these degrees, the body doesn't need t corn dogs, right,
And if you continue to eat those corn dogs with
reduced basil metabolic rate, you're going to gain weight. Ah,
this is the bummer part of it. Right. So if
you you get in the habit of yoga, but you
don't necessarily break the habits of eating that are yeah,
that are happening else Yeah, and now when when? And
(29:21):
I don't know the specifically specifics of this because broad
doesn't really go into this to saying to the degree
that these people were yogis like, you know, did they
practice three hours a day or you know, twice a week.
Did they have a certain certification with a certain style
of yoga which you get into whole hour of certification
that are required. Yeah. You know, if you're doing oshtanga
(29:43):
or something that's a little bit more rigorous than you're
probably your basil metabolic rate probably isn't going to drop
quite as slow. But the point is here is that
you know, you you know, they used to think that okay,
you could do yoga just as well as dogging, and
you get your heart rate up and you'd be able
to burn as many calories. But that's not happening here.
(30:06):
But that's still this is good news because we're gonna
talk about it in a little bit. But um, lowering
your metabolism is huge hate ability, and in fact, it
would really make sense, particularly if you were a yogi
um turn of the century who couldn't find a lot
of food, who was having to sort of batten down
the hatches of energy. To to have the skill to
(30:28):
to lower your metabolism would be great, right, Yeah, yeah,
I mean you could guess you do some means of
coping with with hunger, I mean real hunger and that
you know Western I need tin corn dogs hunger, but
legitimate hunger. Okay. Another claim that comes up is oxygen Like,
if you do this this routine, your body is going
to be flush with oxygen um. And certainly you you've
(30:52):
become you become conscious more conscious of your breathing, and
as you're you're getting your heart rate up, you are
breathing more. So you can under stand where this idea
comes from, right, But it turns out that no matter
how fast or flow. You breathe, you get generally the
same amount of oxygen into your body and into your brain. Okay,
so it doesn't really matter. Yoga does not it's not
going to change the amount of oxygen that you absorb.
(31:15):
What changes, and this is actually can have several different ramifications,
is the amount of carbon dioxide in your system that
all of that breathing. And so there's something like the
cabala body breath. This is called the breath of fire
skull shining. Wait, wait, is this the one where I inhale?
I go, yeah, like you have that one? Sorry everybody,
(31:38):
but yeah, that's how it gets. And basically what you're
doing is you're taking your your belly button and try
to you're forcing it against the back of your spine,
and you're breathing really fast and now for your nose.
But your stomach is like a rubber band. It keeps
going back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.
And then I breathe that. Yeah, well that puts a
lot of carbon dioxide into your blood. That that feeling
like you're about to pass out. That's why it's not
(32:01):
necessarily it's I mean, it's not necessarily bad for you,
but of course. Um. You know, there's a whole list
of things that of the reasons why you probably shouldn't
practice it, like if you were pregnant. Um. But anyway,
that's sort of this idea of Okay, we're getting all
this oxygen. You're just replenishing your vile organs with oxygen.
That's not necessarily the case. Yeah, I mean you get
(32:23):
into situations with a lot of stuff in yoga where
you're you're putting your body in a position or you're
doing something with your breath where it allows you to
feel something that you don't normally feel, and an awareness
of your body that is not normally present. So it's
very easy then to layer some some fiction on top
(32:43):
of an experience and making into something it's not right.
And at the same time, though your body is undergoing
these these changes that are are affecting your mood. Um.
And we'll talk about that in the benefits a little
bit more. Um. I mean there there's there's real manifest
station here. Now. I don't want to want I say fiction.
I don't want to imply that putting a little a
(33:04):
layer of fiction or you know, or myth or whatever
on top of a sensation can't help you maybe understand
and empower you, uh to a sense. I don't want
to just completely discount idea serpents and chakras and what
have you. I think it's it's all, it's all valid. Well,
that's the power of storytelling, right, we talked about that,
(33:25):
putting a little power of storytelling on top of this
weird pain that is going through my leg. You know. Um,
I think it's totally fine. Now. I think we should
take a break. Yeah, we probably should. Yeah, when we
come back, we will talk about some of the risks
and then some of these incredible rewards, including those Yeah,
(33:46):
well that pose, Well, we'll talk about a potential account
of you. All right, we're back. You can you can
go into child's pose now and uh and we'll venture
into the into the second half of them. No, no,
you you stay in pigeon. Okay. Alright, So William Jay
(34:08):
broad rancor yoga community, and specifically because he talked about
some of the risks, um, when he is talking about
the risk, he's talking mainly about the neck region. Yeah,
and it's important to note here too that like like
my yoga class, the many class I go to, uh,
my teacher is really great about stressing. Hey, don't overdo it,
(34:30):
you know, come in, UM do what's comfortable for you.
Don't try to compete with yourself or with other people
in the class. Don't trying to impress anybody, and and
you know, be mindful of the risk. Not every class
is like this, and not every practitioner or potential practitioner
rather is going to be that mindful of all this.
You get me. I mean, that's that's how most of
(34:53):
these injuries happen. It seems like people come in and
they either get into a moment where I'm going to
try to impress this person or or I'm gonna do
what I feel like I should be doing and not
what my body is telling me to do. Yeah, and um,
you know William J. Brod does he he does bring
that up. He says, there's this sort of neophyte problem
to it, right, because if you don't really know how
(35:14):
to get out of the poses and how it affects
you yet, then you probably shouldn't try some that that
um are more extreme or UM put more extreme pressure
on your body. And UM, like I was telling you about,
I was in a class and I go to I
take close of the y m c A. So you
get people that will come in like forty five minutes
(35:35):
into a class and they'll be advised, Hey, it could
be dangerous if you start a yoga class forty five
minutes in and then you know this. I watch somebody,
like an overweight person in socks go up into wheel
and they did not snap in half and have to
be carried off to the hospital. This time you can. Yeah,
wheel is a backward bend and it's basically going up.
(35:57):
I think sure everybody is familiar with the image of
the ridge right where you're on your back and you
go up into bridge. This five earls can snap in
and out of this, no problem. Um, But it's it's
a it's really um. It's it takes a lot of
effort to get your body up in that position and
you're essentially your head is upside down, your neck is
(36:18):
crooked back quite a bit. And this is what Broad
is talking about. He's saying that these poses that really
bend your neck. You know, these ninety degree angles are
putting a lot of pressure on your cervical vertebrae. And
what a lot of people don't realize is that there
are vertebral arteries that are basically looping themselves within this
(36:39):
framework of vertebrae up in your neck. So it's like
sort of this intricate um snaking of these arteries. So
when you're bending your head back that much, you're putting
a tremendous amount of pressure e pressuring pressure. Um. And
so he's talking about in poses like headstand. I think
everybody's familiar with that, shoulders stand and which you swing
(37:02):
your your legs up over your head. Yeah, kind of
like the bicycle thing that you would do in elementary
school gym. Yeah, if you're in your back um wheel again.
And then something called plow and plow is that Actually
when I just said shoulder stand, I was just um
talking about plow um. When you're in shoulder chain, you
just swing your legs over. Oh yes, okay, yeah, so
(37:25):
they go over your head. So basically anything that puts
torque on the neck. So again these are not well
known arteries. And the problem here is that everybody is
structured differently. So your your the way that your arteries
loop in there and the way that your cervical vertebrae
are are going to be different from another person. In
other words, or some people don't have much room in there. Yeah,
(37:47):
and that's the thing. You go into a class like
this and people start going to a pose, it's it's
easy to fall into the thinking, oh, that's what our
bodies do, that's what my body should do. But everyone's
body is different. Sounds cliche, It is cliche, but it's true. Yeah,
he says, like, there's no m r I machine when
you go through the doors of yoga studios, so it's
not like you know exactly where you're the oddities might
(38:08):
be in your framework. Yeah, I mean, on a very
simple level, not everybody can touch their toes. Not everybody
should touch theirs, you know. And uh, when you get
into much more um, when you when you get into
this neck region, when you get in the vertebrae, um,
you can have potentially devastating results from pushing things too far. Yeah.
In fact, what he's talking about is, Okay, let's say
(38:30):
you tork those arteries and then you tear them. Um,
you get some blood clots there, right, come on the post,
the clot sales up to your brain and you have
a stroke. That's the problem. Now he's saying that this
is very rare, so we shouldn't. Yeah, we shouldn't all
you know be uh, you know, like, oh, this is
gonna happen tomorrow. It is very rare. He's saying, you know,
something like three cases a year, and of those three
(38:53):
d cases, less than five result and death. Um. But
he is saying that it's something that people should be
aware of. Personally, I don't do a headstand or Childer's
stand or any of that anymore, and I haven't for
about five years now. UM. But he the problem here
is that, um, you know, case after case of someone
(39:14):
in their twenties and their thirties coming out of a
pose and then having a stroke anywhere from you know
then to thirty six hours later gives you this gray
area of well did that really cause the stroke? Because
you know, correlation is not causation, as we know. But
he is saying that the problem here is that we
don't have you know, medical Um science hasn't really said
(39:38):
let's study these strokes in yoga in earnest and try
to figure out what's happening. But he's saying there's enough
cases of really healthy people practicing yoga who have had
strokes that we should stop and we should look at
the evidence here of how tenuous this artery is um
and how we should respect it a little bit more. Yeah,
I mean respect is respecting the body and respecting the
(40:00):
limitations and fragility of the body is important, because that's
another thing about coming into something like yoga if you
if you haven't, And yoga appeals to a wide number
of people, but it often appeals to people who have
not been all that physically active, who do not have
a lot of experience or any experience with sports or
athletic related injuries. I mean I was, I'm the same
(40:20):
way like prior to yoga, my main the main thing
I ever did with swimming, which is very low impact.
You know, I never injured myself swimming. Uh, maybe I
balked my head, you know on the concrete once or twice,
but that I can remember. But but for the most part,
you're not gonna strain something or be limping around after
you've done some laps. Uh. You going to yoga, it's
(40:40):
a different story. And if you don't have experience with
straining too hard and busting something, you're inevitably gonna end
up on that, you know, in that class where you
you do go a little too far and then for
the first time you're you learned what it's like to
to to to to suffer you know, sports or athletic injury. Okay,
so into that point, I'm gonna bring up bit Chrome
and I'm not picking on Bickram, and Broad is not
(41:02):
picking on Bickram either. He's just saying that when you
heat a room to a hundred and four degrees hundred
and three degrees degrees um, what you're doing is not
only are you making everybody sweat um last night's dinner
out um, which always you know, culminates into a great
funk in the in the yoga room, um, but what
(41:23):
you're doing is is you're creating an environment in which
the joints, the muscles all get very loose, and all
of a sudden you feel like, oh I can do
all these incredible poses. I am gumby. But he's saying
that what happens is that you are pushing your body
to its outer limits. That in normal conditions, in a
normal conditioned room, um, with normal temperatures, your body would
(41:44):
be telling you, hey, this is too much, don't do this.
So he's saying that that is very injurious in a
sense because people are going beyond their odder limits. Like
my teacher always stresses that if you're you're you're in
a posed each should not hurt. You know, there's that
level of I am stretching, I am You know that
(42:05):
that I'm I'm that that I'm engaging the muscles and
I'm engaging my my bones. But I should not feel
like I am hurting my bones and my muscles, because
that is a clear sign you're pushing the boundaries and
you're just you. You know, you're potentially just a slight
tweak away from an injury. Yeah, this has when ligaments
and Carl nch get torn right and over and over again.
(42:27):
Too broad. His said that he's seen this um in
studies with with hot yoga. Um, you know, you you
run a risk of dislocations and springs. I mean it
just goes on and on. And I have taken hot yoga.
I've I have actually really enjoyed it once I got
over the fact that I felt like I was in
a jungle trying to survive to my next breath. But um,
(42:47):
but I did understand, like, you know what, I need
to take it easy here because I do feel like
I could just pop up into wheel, you know, in
two seconds here, and what is that doing to my
body under these extreme circumstances. Um? Okay, so enough with
the downer stuff. Let's talk about telomeres and all these
(43:08):
really incredible things that yoga does. I mean, we're not
just talking about strength, right, because you're you're using your
own body weight to to increase your muscle mass right
when you're in these poses. Um, it's creating endurance, balanced flexibility. Um.
But also something called autonomic control. Okay, for starters, we
have blood pressure. We have seen in studies that yogis
(43:28):
are able to manipulate, um, control over their blood pressure, which,
as we all know, that's a that's a good thing.
I mean, and been able to want to say, manipulated
bring it down right, not not rocking it up. Well.
Hence the again this idea that you know, some yogis
are were supernatural, um and could do these superhuman strengths. Um.
(43:49):
But here's a here is actually a sort of superhuman thing. Um,
there's a mind over matter example. UM. Researchers show that yogis,
or at least one yogi in Broad's book, could create
a gap up to eleven degrees across this palm, a
gap in difference of times between his body in his palm. Um.
(44:10):
So this is why scientists have begun to take interest
in Yogi's because through the scientific lens, you can really
start to see parallels to animal hibernation. We've talked about
this like suspended animation. How can how can we harness
this mind body connection to manipulate our bodies to do
really things that they're not supposed to do or superhuman
(44:31):
things like this. Yeah, and so if I mean, if
you're you're able to adjust blood pressure, I mean we're
talking about improving cardiovasca health as as a whole. Uh,
and this can affect such factors as you know, um
it's high blood pressure, blood sugar, cholesterol, um, and and
even you know, tinker with the proteins that involved in
blood clouding on a beneficial way. So so that's good.
(44:54):
And the other just really incredible thing that I found,
um in in Broad's book was this idea of telomeres
and extending them. Yeah, we've we've mentioned before telomeres and telomeres.
This gets down to these little um like DNA shoelaces
that kind eventually begin to unravel and as they unravel,
thus is the process of aging. Things start to go downhill.
(45:18):
Your body starts to suck and uh that's all she wrote. So, uh,
we we have seen that that yoga, of course reduces stress,
and then in reducing stress, one can actually reduce the
unraveling of those telomeres and the eventual suckage of said body. Yeah,
because it turns out that stress is one of the
things that erodes the tips of of UM DNA, right,
(45:41):
this is and this is what tel moras, the enzyme
can come in and deliver more genetic information and actually
extend those tips. So stuff like disease, um, you know,
chronic stress that's going to whittle away at our biological
clocks because that's really what telomeres are, these biological clocks
that are kicking. So if you can lump more material
(46:05):
and it extend these DNA tips, then this is a
sort of fountain of youth. And when I say this, UM,
I don't mean to say like, oh, you know, you
know indefinitely, if you just do yoga, we're all going
to live for the rest of our lives. Um. But
it does show that yoga can slow biological aging and
a Harvard physician and health superstar Dean Ornish. I'm sure
(46:27):
a lot of people have heard of him, looked at
twenty four men who took up his health regimen. The
subjects were aged fifty to eighty and did yoga for
an hour days, six days a week over three months,
and they had their tel Mara's levels. These ensign levels
taken before and after the study. And in addition to
the decline in the cholesterol, as you say, blood pressure,
in general anxiety, it was found that the post yoga
(46:49):
subjects tell Moray's levels shot up by that to me
is wow, I mean, whoa, That's a reason to do
yoga right there. Yeah. And then there's also little something
called gabba, which is not not yogaba kaba, but the
neuro transmitter that is tied in with the heightened moods.
If you've ever been a supplement junkie, then you've probably
(47:12):
run across GAPA pills at your local health food store
and it's a low levels of GABBA have been linked
to depression and uh so Broad reported that scientists from
Boston University School of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, and McLean
Psychiatric Hospital found that the brains of yoga practitioners showed
increases in GABBA levels um. And apparently it was more so. Uh,
(47:34):
it was more prevalent in more experienced yoga practitioners as well. Yeah, yeah,
it's something uh rise in the regular practitioners, and then
in newbies it was just rise. But that is still
a significant amount of gabba neurotransmitters hanging out in your brain. Yeah.
Less stress, I mean less stress is less stress, So
(47:57):
that's great, but less stress less less uh, decaying of
the Tell me here's longer life. It's all good. Yeah. Yeah.
And then here's one more thing to throw at you,
because I know, I feel like we're starting to sound
like a Ginzoo NiFe commercial, but here we have. It's
the immune system. Um. Also it benefits from yoga. The
vadgist nerve which runs from the brain stem to the
(48:18):
torso um. And by the way, that just has etymological
roots with vagabond, right, because it's a sort of vagabond
of your body, this this nerve. UM. We know that
the nerve central action is to regulate and slow the heart,
this nerve, but more recently we found out that also
regulates the immune system and it helps to fight inflammation,
(48:40):
and so there have been studies with people who suffer
from rheumatoid arthritis who have really found that poses that
flex their spine and stimulate the Vadgish nerve are finding
a lot of um, a lot of benefits to being
able to walk without pain and all these great things.
And of course it's nature's viagra. Yes, yeah, And we'll
(49:04):
we'll get into the the sexual benefits of yoga in
our additional podcast that we're doing this week on yoga,
which was titled Yoga Sex Magic, So tune into that
one if you want to hear more about it. But
but studies have shown that yoga does lead to improvements
in one's sex life. So yeah, we'll leave it at
(49:25):
that in your imagination. So we're gonna since we're going
a little longer, I'm gonna skip listener mail on this episode,
but I do want I do think we should leave
everyone with with some encouragement, uh, some added encouragement for yoga. Um.
And we're both yoga advocates, so we're gonna advocate it here.
And I'm just gonna say, if if yoga sounds at
(49:47):
all interesting, give it a try, and not just one
try give it a couple because the first time I
took yoga, I did not like it, and I do
not think I would have gone back had my wife
not been interested in trying get some were I mean,
it's just it's not necessarily gonna grab you that first time.
But but if you know, give it a chance, and
(50:07):
give various styles a chance. Like I said, maybe Black
Death yoga is you're there, are definital yoga is your thing. Yeah,
maybe diamon Dallas Page just yoga is your thing or
or you know, and it's all gateway. Maybe you get
a taste of it and then you find something that's
really more suited for what you want. But there's a
lot out there on the buffet. Yeah, and I know
that I love my studio because they cater to pretty
(50:27):
much everyone under the sun. So if you have some
physical limitations, there's cheer yoga, there's um yoga for depression
and anxiety relation yoga. There's there's yoga for veterans actually
as well in my studio, which is great, um Nato yoga.
There's post Nato yoga. There's you know, yoga for for
mothers in their their their their infants, so there's there's
(50:48):
a wide variety of stuff out there. So yoga for magicians, Yeah, yeah, probably,
I'm not gonna doubt anywhere at this point. Um, but yeah,
look around and you know, and if and if yoga
definitely isn't your thing, you know, find something some sort
of activity out there. Um. If nothing else, just try
to think a little bit bit about your breathing during
(51:09):
the daily life and see where it takes it. Let's
do it now, Okay, So where can you find us?
You can find us on Facebook where we are stuff
to Blow your Mind, and you can also find us
on Twitter where our handle is blow the Mind. And
you can also send us a line at blow the
Mind at discovery dot com for moral this and thousands
(51:37):
of other topics. Does it have stuff works dot com
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