Thoughts on Yoga research

Modern medical advancements provide the rationale for the integration of various traditional healing techniques including Yoga to promote healing, health, and longevity.

It is imperative that advances in medicine include the wholistic approach of Yoga to face the current challenges in health care.

The antiquity of Yoga must be united with the innovations of modern medicine to improve quality of life throughout the world.

While modern medicine has a lot to offer humankind in its treatment and management of acute diseases, accidents and communicable diseases, Yoga has a lot to offer in terms of preventive, promotive and rehabilitative methods in addition to many management methods to tackle modern illnesses.

Numerous studies have been reported in recent decades on the psycho-physiological and biochemical changes occurring following the practice of Yoga.

We discuss some of the researched benefits to facilitate an understanding of how Yoga works at least at the physical level, though we are yet to research and understand subtler effects of Yoga.

The positive benefits of Yoga research are of vital significance and an understanding of how the various practices work in different conditions and in normal situations are of great value for both the science of Yoga as well as for the world of medicine.

Yoga therapists can benefit a lot by a scientific understanding of Yoga postures and other techniques. This will bring about a rational approach to Yoga therapy rather than a haphazard application of individualistic knowledge.

Yoga research in India has a long history and work done by Swami Kuvalayananda of Kaivalyadhama and that of pioneers such as Professors BK Anand, Chinna and Baldev Singh at AIIMS, new Delhi and Prof Madanmohan and his team at JIPMER, Pondicherry needs to be remembered with gratitude.

Today yoga research is ubiquitous and the Ministry of AYUSH of the Government of India is supporting many studies. Yoga therapy is being used both in conjunction with modern medicine or alternative systems of medicine as well as on its own in various centers.

Various conditions such as diabetes, hypertension, arthritis, mental depression, bronchial asthma etc have been found to be relieved by Yoga Therapy and traditional centers such as ICYER at Ananda Ashram, sVYASA, Kaivalyadhama, The Yoga Institute and Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram are doing a great deal of work in this field.

Though there is a lot of research on Yoga being done by so many researchers it is important to remember Swami Gitananda Giri’s words when he said,

“We must research Yoga and not the lack of Yoga”. Many studies are badly constructed and many-a-time we find that the Yoga practices performed by the patients have no real relation to Yoga at all”.

The higher aspects of Yoga are still not in the ‘researchable’ realm of modern science.

Read the detailed article exploring a SWOT Analysis in Yoga Research by Dr Kaviraja Udupa, Dr Meena Ramanathan and Dr Ananda B Bhavanani.

This article is based on the “Open House Discussion on Yoga Research: Strength, weakness, opportunities, and threat (SWOT) analysis” that was organized during the international seminar cum workshop conducted by the Centre for Yoga Therapy, Education and Research (CYTER), an innovative center of Sri Balaji Vidyapeeth (SBV), on “Wholistic Approach of Yoga Therapy in Health and Disease” as part of the International Health Research Convention 2019 organized by SBV in July 2019. In this article, we have discussed various factors and dimensions of strength, weakness, opportunities, and threats (challenges or risks) in yoga research especially in the Indian context based on the open house discussion. We have also discussed the ways that could be adopted to improve the standard of yoga research to provide more reliable, authentic, and validated data to evidence-based research. Yoga therapy is a newly emerging field; hence, it is important to analyze the inherent strengths that make research in this field useful for a large section of society as well as the weaknesses that may hinder the quality research in yoga therapy. It is also important to find out possible opportunities that can enhance or boost the work done in this field and know the threats that can retard or hamper quality research.