THE YOGA REVOLUTION IN THE LAST 20 YEARS

June 18, 2016

Today  the World Yoga Day was celebrated by the City Of Yarra in Richmond. The hall was filled with more than 100 bright eyed yogis and yoginis who were there to practice yoga together. There were three sessions by some very talented and experienced yoga teachers who guided the audience through postures, breathing and meditation. It’s a long time since I have actually been guided through the process of deep yogic sleep (yoga nidra) as normally I just do my own practice at home. It was deeply refreshing!

It was a wonderful morning supported by The City Of Yarra; The Consul General for India, the United Nations; Yoga Australia, MP Adam Landt, the Multicultural Commission, as well as an inspiring endurance athlete Samantha Gash who is preparing to run 4000KM across India for World Vision.

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I was asked to speak on medical and personal perspectives on yoga. When I reflected back on my own yoga journey which started as a 20 year old university student, I was struck by how far the entire field has come. Back in those days, you would not admit to another medical student of doctor that you practiced yoga and meditation because it was considered too alternative! But now, yoga has filtered into every nook and cranny of society.

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At the hospital that I work at, The Epworth, they have lunchtime meditation sessions for patients and staff. And in large institutions in the USA, there are departments dedicated to the study and teaching of yoga and meditation. Going back some years now, the conventional notion of coronary artery plaques was that it was a fixed condition with no reversibility. But when Dr Dean Ornish published a landmark study in the Lancet showing that diet, exercise, yoga and group counselling could actually lead to reversal of plaque, conventional paradigms were reassessed.

I do believe that beyond standard recommendations of prevention relating to healthy diet, exercise and avoidance of toxins like smoking, that yoga and meditation continues to be a very underutilised modality in both prevention and in therapy. But all good things take time and the changes that have occurred in terms of people’s perception of yoga and meditation in 25 years is staggering. I would imagine that in another 25 years it will be well integrated into our established medical systems and work alongside conventional medicine quite seamlessly and harmoniously.

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Let’s hope so!

In Health and Wellness