The Science of Yoga

What if someone told you they have a pill, and if you take this pill you will lose weight, change the shape of your body, improve your sex life, uplift your moods, expand your creativity,  gain more energy, relieve back pain,  and reduce stress.  Oh, but wait.  There is a catch.  If you take this pill you run the risk of developing a blood clot in a major artery to your brain which could cause a stroke and kill you.  Would you take it?

What if that pill was yoga?

When William Broad's book,  The Science of Yoga: The Risks and the Rewards, was released this year he created a stir in the popular media by raising similar questions.

On February 3rd the New York Times ran a book review (Read NYT Review) of Broad’s new book. The article was quickly followed by the LA Times on February 6, four days later by NPR, and then a week after that by the Washington Post.  The firestorm of controversy and discussion centered largely on one chapter of Broad’s book titled “Risk of Injury.”   In this chapter Broad cites several anecdotal instances where yogis actually died as a result of overly stressing major arteries to the brain during certain yoga postures.

I first heard Broad in his interview on NPR (Listen to the interview).  Only catching bits and pieces of the interview I was initially annoyed.  “Great,” I thought, “just what America needs- another book to make everyone scared.  Hey, here’s an idea.  Why don’t we all just sit on our sofas with a remote control and die of heart disease instead of assuming a small risk to actually improve our health?  What the heck??.”  I wasn’t alone.   The yoga studios were buzzing with “have you read that article?  Did you hear that guy?  Can doing a headstand really kill you?.”  I put the book on hold at our neighborhood library.  This week it finally arrived, and I had the chance to read it and make my own opinion.  

The New York Times gives the book a much stronger review than the Washington Post. If you are at all interested in this topic, but don’t feel you have time to peruse the book, take a skim at these reviews to get the gist of the book.  If you practice yoga regularly or even sporadically I’d recommend reading at least two of the chapters - “Risk of Injury” and “Healing”- to have a more educated understanding of what you are doing to your body as you twist, turn, and flip upside down.  Broad’s call for a more regulated training of instructors (almost like that of physical therapists) is worth noting.  Will you have a stroke if you do backbends or headstands?  Probably not... but you might think differently about the way you do them after reading Broad’s cautionary tales.   The last two chapters- “Divine Sex” and “Muse”- don’t do much for arguing the case that this book is the science of yoga.  Entertaining?  Sure, but these chapters also seem like they were added to sell more books rather than help readers understand the physiology of yoga.   

In the end the book is not at all what I thought it was going to be or what NPR initially leads you to believe when they say that “scientific studies tell a different story” about the health claims of yoga.  Far from discouraging readers from practicing yoga, Broad is exceedingly positive about the health benefits of it.  His warnings about novice instructors, the explosive growth of the industry without regulation, and the seriousness of its implications on the body should all be heeded.   The problem is, in the words of Washington Post reviewer Cathryn Keller, “a matter of proportion.”  She writes, “His de facto definitions of both yoga and science are too narrow for the complexity of his subject” (Read Post Review).   But she does admit that the book has started a conversation, one that has needed to happen.  In that the book is valuable to anyone who has experimented with yoga.  Just don't read it while standing on your head, OK?