Episode notes:

“Virtually every yoga practice is capable of generating a relaxation effect." This is just one of the points Sat Bir Singh Khalsa, Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, makes in our latest episode. Kim and Sat Bir explore the fact that yoga is a multifaceted mind-body modality offering basic strategies for coping with stress and emotion. They talk about how it is altogether different from a practice that the public perceives as a physical set of self-care exercises appropriate only for white, able-bodied women with time and financial resources.

As a researcher, scientist, and yoga practitioner, Sat Bir has devoted his life to bringing the scientific research on yoga to the public. He has done this the way any researcher would attempt to introduce new research in a virtually unknown field: He has conducted and begun to specialize his own research, established himself at a prestigious research school, and created professional connections—and symposia—with influencers within both yoga teaching and yoga therapy.

Kim and Sat Bir talk about the recent Symposium on Yoga Research, held annually by the International Association of Yoga Therapists—what it is, why it's important, and where it could go. The pair also attempt to answer questions like:

1. Could the growing field of scientific research on yoga have any impact on this unregulated industry of gig workers who, on average, have only 300 hours of training under their belt?

2. How can yoga teachers reach the end user with scientific research most relevant for the condition they might be facing?

3. How can the yoga industry reach doctors and other care providers with the right message and matchmaking in yoga for their patients? What is a yoga therapist and how might this care profession grow as the public becomes more aware of the efficacy of yoga practices for certain diseases?

4. Has any scientific research on yoga reached the consensus-paper level in the medical community? (The answer is yes, and the research has been in oncology and chronic lower back pain).

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Books and media referenced:

1. Yoga Alliance videos on the Scientific Research on Yoga

2. Yoga Alliance webinars on the Scientific Research on Yoga

3. Symposium on Yoga Research

4. PubMed

5. Introduction to Yoga, Harvard Medical School

6. The Relaxation Response, Herbert Benson

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Episode credits:

Original music by Kim's band Governess

Produced by Alyssa Yeroshefsky and Kim Weeks

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