Does Yoga Really Work? It Sounds Promising.

The worst place to leave me alone in is a library. Why is that you ask? It's simple, what is inside a library? Books. Lots of them.

Hundreds of books I'll never find the time to devour but a few select ones I'll get my hands on.

I haven't been completely naughty today. I read 10 pages of Western Civ as I ate my turkey sandwich today. (Ten pages in the maximum I can read in history before my brain tunes out the words.)

I just happened to spend the next hour and a half pouring over a book about Yoga and Woman's Health which just so happened to be an amazing book. Not only does it have instructions and pictures for how to do each pose, it has different sequences of poses for different focuses. I had no idea of the amazing health benefits of yoga! It can be used to help regulate menstrual cycles, to help eliminate PMS, to prepare for pregnancy, to energize and to help boost the immune system.

Improve Your Circulation

Good surveillance- the seek-and-destroy mission of the immune cells-depends on good circulation. Remember that immune cells not only live in specific sites in your body, but also roam freely throughout the bloodstream and lymphatic fluids looking for foreign organisms. And, because your immune system relies on information from the central nervous and endocrine systems, good circulation allows immune cells to communicate freely with the pituitary gland, pineal body, hypothalamus, lymphatic tissues, and other immune cell sites like the gastrointestinal tract, repository track, and skin.

Inversions are yoga's gift to your circulation system. Headstand, Shoulderstand, and Plough Pose all improve blood flow to the endocrine glands. When you are in a pose, Patricia says it helps to visualize what yoga masters call the squeezing, soaking, and massaging action of the posture. In Shoulderstand, for example, you can feel how a chin lock exerts gentle massage pressure on the throat, "squeezing" out the stale blood. As you release the pose, visualize the area being soaked with new, healthy immune cells and flooded with blood to regulate their function. By turning everything upside down, inversions energize and stabilize the whole system. According to yoga researcher, Krishna Raman, author of A Matter of Health, yoga's squeeze-and-soak action pushes out cellular toxins more efficiently than other forms of exercise.

He also writes that the massage action in general brings freshly oxygenated blood to your skin, which promotes "healthy output of antibacterial secretions," enhances blood flow to your respiratory tract, and pushes blood into your bone marrow, increasing your body's ability to produce immune cells. What most women know is that Shoulderstand makes them feel joyful and balanced, energized and peaceful at the same time.

-Woman's Book of Yoga and Health
Linda Sparrowe
Patricia Walkden


I get majorly and inconveniently sick a lot. This includes respiratory illnesses, skin diseases, sore throats and bladder infections. Fun stuff.

Fall 2009

• Strep Throat
  

Summer 2009

• Urinary Tract Infection
• Yeast Infection

Summer 2008

• Pityriasis Rosea
• Strep Throat
• Fifth's Disease

Winter 2007

• The Flu
• Bronchitis

That is not to mention all of the colds I caught during this time as well.

So I am going to embark on a journey of yoga and see if I can increase my immune system. I'm also interested to see if balancing my endocrine system would have any effect on my hypothyroidism. I shall see if yoga truly works.