Yoga and the Mind

I have no doubts there is a tremendous amount of upside to doing a yoga daily rountine and very little downside. It is one of the best bangs for your time bucks. That is why I do about an hour a day. I started out at five minutes and over a number of months have worked my way up. I intend to continue, inshAllah

Yoga and the Mind: Can Yoga Reduce Symptoms of Major Psychiatric Disorders?

Read more: http://healthland.time.com/2013/01/28/yoga-and-the-mind-can-yoga-reduce-symptoms-of-major-psychiatric-disorders/#ixzz2JmEjTpj2

http://healthland.time.com/2013/01/28/yoga-and-the-mind-can-yoga-reduce-symptoms-of-major-psychiatric-disorders/?iid=hl-main-leadYoga does the body good, and according to a new study, it may ease the mind as well.

“Yoga has also become such a cultural phenomenon that it has become difficult for physicians and consumers to differentiate legitimate claims from hype,” researchers from Duke University Medical Center write in their study, published in the journal Frontiers in Psychiatry. In order to explore the widely held belief that practicing yoga can relieve mental stress, the team reviewed more than 100 studies on the effect of yoga and mental health.

“Most individuals already know that yoga produces some kind of a calming effect. Individually, people feel better after doing the physical exercise,” says lead study author Dr. P. Murali Doraiswamy, a professor of psychiatry and medicine at Duke University Medical Center. “Mentally, people feel calmer, sharper, maybe more content. We thought it’s time to see if we could pull all [the literature] together … to see if there’s enough evidence that the benefits individual people notice can be used to help people with mental illness.”

(MORE: Yoga Can Help Stroke Survivors Regain Their Balance)

Their findings suggest that yoga does in fact have positive effects on mild depression and sleep problems, and it improves the symptoms of psychiatric disorders like schizophrenia and ADHD among patients using medication.

The researchers focused on 16 studies that recorded the effects of practicing yoga on mental-health issues ranging from depression, schizophrenia, ADHD, sleep complaints and eating disorders to cognitive problems. They found positive effects of the mind-and-body practice for all conditions with the exception of eating disorders and cognition. Those studies involved too few participants or produced conflicting results to draw any meaningful conclusions.

Some of the studies included in the analysis even suggested that yoga might affect the body in ways similar to antidepressants and psychotherapy. For instance, yoga may influence brain chemicals known as neurotransmitters (boosting levels of feel-good agents like serotonin), lower inflammation, reduce oxidative stress and produce a healthier balance of lipids and growth factors — just as other forms of exercise do.

(MORE: We Tried This: Aerial Vinyasa (or Upside-Down) Yoga)

Embracing yoga as a complementary treatment for mental disorders is not uncommon. Yoga is a feature in many veterans’ centers throughout the country, backed by research funded by the Department of Veterans Affairs. The Huffington Post reported that many troops use yoga as a form of treatment for PTSD, for example, with companies like Warriors at Ease training instructors in yoga techniques specifically catered to those in the military. A study published earlier this month of 70 active-duty troops found daily yoga eased anxiety and improved sleep.

The researchers say there’s enough evidence to warrant a larger study on the effects of yoga on mental health, and it should be considered as part of treatment for more disorders. “Many millions of Americans are doing yoga and many millions of Americans have mental illnesses and are popping psychiatric pills daily. Despite all of this, the vast majority of studies looking at the benefits of yoga are all small studies. We did not come across a single study where there was a coordinated effort done by some large agency to really conduct a large national study,” says Doraiswamy.

(MORE: Does Yoga Really Drive People Wild with Desire?)

But while the research is promising, yoga likely won’t be a panacea for mental illness. Nor should patients try to replace their medications with the practice. “What we are saying is that we still need to do further, large-scale studies before we are ready to conclude that people with mental illnesses can turn to yoga as a first-line treatment,” says Doraiswamy. ”We are not saying throw away your Prozac and turn to yoga. We’re saying it has the promise and potential. If a large national study were done, it could turn out that yoga is just as good and may be a low cost alternative to people with unmet needs.” In the meantime, he says it doesn’t hurt to add yoga to existing treatments so patients can take advantage of any potential benefits.

Alexandra Sifferlin @acsifferlin

Alexandra Sifferlin is a writer and producer for TIME Healthland. She is a graduate from the Northwestern University Medill School of Journalism.

Read more: http://healthland.time.com/2013/01/28/yoga-and-the-mind-can-yoga-reduce-symptoms-of-major-psychiatric-disorders/#ixzz2JmEaj1In

Seven Dangerous Myths About Weight Loss -- Or Are They Little White Lies?

http://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewherper/2013/01/31/seven-dangerous-myths-about-weight-loss-or-are-they-little-white-lies/

The cover copy of a thousand magazines was attacked this morning in the august pages of the New England Journal of Medicineby Krista Casazza, David B. Allison, both from the University of Alabama, Birmingham, and a long list of co-authors.

Much of what you’ve been told about weight loss is wrong and, in the current style of journalists everywhere, they break these misconceptions down into a list of widely-held myths, which they then attack with dry academic savagery.

1. Eating a little less and exercising a little more, over the long term, won’t produce large, long-term weight changes. For a half century, experts have talked about the 3,500-kilocalorie (kilocalories are what we call “calories” in everyday speech). That means for every 3,500 calories you burn or don’t consume, you lose a pound. But this rule was derived from short-term studies. More recent data, the authors say, shows that people lose much less weight when they burn it over a longer period of time.

2. It’s not important to set realistic weight loss goals to avoid frustration. Be ambitious instead. Two studies, the authors say, actually show that interventions designed to improve weight-loss by setting more realistic goals did not lead patients to lose more weight, and several studies show more weight loss with aggressive goals.

3. There’s no reason to think that slow, gradual weight loss is better over the long-term compared to losing lots of weight fast. A pooled analysis of randomized clinical trials that compared rapid weight loss and slow weight loss (or, to be more precise, extreme diets and less grueling ones) found that though the extreme diets resulted in the loss of 66% more weight (16% of body weight versus 10% for the regular diets), there was no difference at the end of a year.

4. There’s no reason to make sure patients are ready for weight-loss treatment. Actually, studies don’t show that measurements of how ready people are to begin dieting, once they seek out a weight loss plan, have any predictive value about how much weight people will eventually lose.

5. Physical education classes don’t play much of a role in preventing childhood obesity. Studies show that phys ed, as it currently exists, doesn’t have a significant impact on obesity.

6. Breast-feeding doesn’t protect against obesity later in life. The authors argue that breastfeeding, despite statements by the WorldHealth Organization to the contrary, doesn’t prevent obesity. Instead, they argue, this is the effect of researchers only publishing breast feeding studies when they have a positive result.

7. Sex doesn’t burn that many calories.Despite the many times you’ve heard that sex burns between 100 and 300 kcals, that’s based on an old, small study. More recent estimate: 14 kilocalories, on average.

Maggie Fox at NBC, who did a wonderful write-up of the New England Journal article for NBC, points out that a lot of the authors disclose financial ties to drug or device makers. She quotes NYU’s Marion Nestle saying that the study only makes sense if “the only things that work are drugs, bariatric surgery, and meal replacements, all of which are made by companies with financial ties to the authors.” The worry is that this is just another way to deliver patients to Allergan, which makes the Lap-Band surgical device, or Vivus and Arena Pharmaceuticals, which make newly approved obesity drugs.

There’s a point to that. I’m a great believer in clinical trials, but it’s always important to remember that just because a clinical trial does not show an effect doesn’t mean that effect doesn’t exist — although it always means that effect is smaller than you hoped. Every single one of these myths seems likely to me to have seemed like a little white lie when told by an individual doctor to an individual patient. Saying that just dieting and exercising a little helps likely gets a lot more patients dieting and exercising; likewise, patients are probably less scared by the prospect of gradual weight loss; breastfeeding may prevent infection and raise IQ; telling people sex can be part of their workouts can be encouraging.

But I agree with the authors that, on a larger scale, these myths are harmful: because we can’t set good public policy about obesity if we’ve convinced ourselves that approaches that work don’t. And although I’m not sure how perceiving these myths as true would impact peoples’ weight loss (the myths wouldn’t help, but I’m not sure they hurt) the way we repeat them almost certainly leads to a sense that scientist understand weight loss far better than they do. On the flip side, there is undoubtably a benefit to keeping the conversation about weight loss going in an appealing way — that’s exactly why people in white lab coats tell little white lies. The problem facing us, is, essentially, the Dr. Oz problem: how do we have an appealing conversation about health without repeating balderdash? This is one of the big problems of medicine, and we are not close to solving it.

via Myths, Presumptions, and Facts about Obesity — NEJM.

Just the Doing

Just the Doing

You cannot expect too much too quickly. The art and science of self-transformation is never steady or linear, sometimes aspects of it are lightening quick and other time glacial slow. There is no telling where, when or how. There is just the patient doing of what needs to be done.

Only You Can Do What Has to be Done

This I know; when life is threatened by something deep within, there stops being guides and that person on their own must come to terms with themselves, life, death, courage, and the Mystery. True honesty is the only compass. This harrowing situation is the best opportunity for enlightenment and a wonderful path into a new birth whether in this body or another. Three things are critical at this time - breathing diagrammatically – meditation - and yoga. Keep your heart good and your mind centered and calm. Step up and out into the unknown and stay there until you know. Do what has to be done. When a trauma transforms the traumatized in a way that elevates her/him she/he is never the same and the world is a better place.