Publication
Yoga Alliance
Abstract
About This Workshop
70-90% of all primary care visits in America are related to chronic stress and stress-related illnesses such as anxiety, depression, PTS, heart disease, headaches, GI disruptions, and more. In the next workshop of the Scientific Research series, Yoga Alliance Director of Research, Dr. Sat Bir Singh Khalsa is joined by Dr. John Denninger, Director of Research at the Benson-Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard University and Indu Arora, Ayurveda and Yoga Therapist, for a conversation on how yoga, meditation, and the Relaxation Response might be able to counteract the toxic effects of chronic stress.
During this workshop you’ll learn:
- Research related to yogic meditation and its effects on the body and mind
- Research on single-point focused meditation and the Relaxation Response
- How to use this research in your teachings with an experiential meditation practice followed by tips on how to effectively teach meditation to elicit the Relaxation Response
Web and Email Links
Related Listings
Journal
Nature
Since meditative practices are associated with changes that are consistent with decreased activity of the sympathetic nervous system, it is conceivable that measurable body temperature changes accompany advanced meditative states. With the help of H.H. the Dalai Lama, we have investigated such a possibility on three practitioners of the advanced Tibetan Buddhist meditational practice known as g Tum-mo (heat) yoga living in Upper Dharamsala, India. We report here that in a study perfor […]
Journal
PLOS ONE
Mind-body practices that elicit the relaxation response (RR) have been used worldwide for millennia to prevent and treat disease. The RR is characterized by decreased oxygen consumption, increased exhaled nitric oxide, and reduced psychological distress. It is believed to be the counterpart of the stress response that exhibits a distinct pattern of physiology and transcriptional profile. We hypothesized that RR elicitation results in characteristic gene expression changes that can be […]
Journal
Behavioral Medicine
This study evaluated the efficacy of the relaxation response on the postoperative recovery of 27 cardiac surgery patients randomly assigned to one of two groups. Thirteen experimental group patients received educational information and practiced eliciting the relaxation response before and after surgery. The 14 patients in the control group received only information. Experimental and control groups were compared before and after surgery on both physiological and psychological recovery […]