Doctor's Rx:

Dean Ornish, MD
On How Yoga Heals

Attend the 2013 Yoga Journal Conference in San Francisco this January.

Dean Ornish, MD, has introduced millions to the heart-healthy benefits of yoga, meditation, and a vegetarian diet with his ground-breaking clinical research, reports Yoga Journal's Holly Hammond.

Ornish first garnered national acclaim through his famous studies showing that heart disease can be reversed through diet, meditation, group support, and yoga, as published in Dr. Dean Ornish's Program for Reversing Heart Disease. Dr. Ornish has been studying yoga for almost 30 years with Shri Swami Satchidananda. As a researcher, author, and physician consultant to President Clinton, LIFE Magazine named Ornish one of the 50 most influential members of his generation.

Ornish says yoga works by bringing down stress levels, which relaxes everything in your body, including blood vessels. "Your arteries begin to relax so there's more blood flow everywhere, so everything is better."

Here are 10 common ailments that can improve with yoga: Headaches, asthma, sexual dysfunction in women and men, sleep problems, menstrual pain, rotator cuff injuries, osteoporosis, pain sensitivity, and depression and anxiety. "People often have a hard time believing they can get such powerful change from yoga, but they do," adds Ornish, as reported on CNN.com.

"When I first began conducting research 23 years ago, we had to refer to yoga as 'stress management techniques.' The cardiologists said, 'We can't refer to a study that includes yoga—what are we going to tell patients, that we're referring them to a swami?' Since then, yoga has achieved much greater acceptance within American medicine as well as in the general population. I am very encouraged by the current state of yoga in America."

SOURCES:
http://www.yogajournal.com/lifestyle/359
http://www.thewellnesswire.com/Live-Longer/dean-ornish-on-how-yoga-heals.html

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