Yoga is a type of stretching exercise practice that has numerous potential health benefits. Although most people use yoga to improve their overall sense of well-being or enhance physical fitness, try yoga as a complementary therapy to help in treating breathing problems. Consult your doctor before you try yoga for any health purpose.
Benefits
Preliminary research indicates that yoga could help treat asthma, according to the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. When used as a complementary therapy in addition to conventional treatments, yoga appears to improve lung function and asthma-related quality of life, reduce the frequency of airway restriction brought on by exercise and decrease the use of asthma rescue medication and inhalers. Yoga may also help treat lung cancer, the Mayo Clinic says.
Function
For asthma, yoga appears to help people learn to breathe easier through the specific breathing and relaxation exercises associated with the practice, the University of Michigan Health System says. When you're practicing a yoga posture, you control and focus on your breathing to help hold the pose and relax your muscles. Breathing exercises in yoga are called pranayama. They aim to improve your body's efficiency in oxygen use, increase blood circulation and reduce your overall oxygen consumption, says the University of Maryland Medical Center. Pranayama also seems to increase your lung capacity by improving your lung tissue's elasticity and muscle flexibility.
Potential
Yoga may provide a variety of other health benefits. For example, it's a complementary therapy sometimes recommended for treating stress and anxiety, arthritis, other types of cancer, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, chronic back pain, migraines, hormonal imbalances and irritable bowel syndrome, according to the University of Maryland Medical Center. Yoga could have the potential to help support a health pregnancy and reduce the risks for or help in treating heart disease. Yoga may also help to reduce fatigue in people who have multiple sclerosis, the University of Michigan Health System says. However, no conclusive, widely accepted scientific research supports the use of yoga alone to prevent or treat any medical condition.
Considerations
Never replace your regular treatments and management of breathing problems with yoga, warns the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. Instead, you can add yoga to your treatment plan but only after consulting a doctor -- especially if you have breathing problems due to asthma, lung cancer or other conditions.
Member Comments