Bikram yoga. Approach to Fitness and Health.

I spent seven years helping patients with kidney disease and related heath challenges as a physician in a high-level, high pressure nephrology practice in Boca Raton, Florida. Today, I’m proud to be helping people in a different, even more rewarding way, by teaching them to heal themselves through Bikram yoga.

Although financially rewarding, my medical practice allowed me no personal life, and the stress was taking a toll on me. I took a break and began researching yoga as a means for both physical and emotional fitness. Always interested in health and fitness, I worked out every day, spending at least three days a week with a personal trainer and playing tennis several times a week. I found that lifting weights, however, made me look bulky.

Someone told me about Bikram yoga, so I found a local studio and gave it a try. It was the most challenging physical activity I had ever experienced in my life. The hour and a half practice consists of 26 poses done in a room heated to about 106 degrees. The poses require such concentration that your mind is forced to rest the entire class. In the end, you feel cleansed both physically and emotionally. I was hooked immediately. I call it Approach to Fitness and Health.

I began my own personal practice of Bikram and in October 2006 opened my own Bikram studio in Lighthouse Point, Florida and completed the nine-week training to become a certified Bikram instructor. As a physician, I carefully studied the medical benefits of Bikram and have seen firsthand how my own students have been able to shed pounds, reduce stress and eliminate dependency on medications.

For centuries, the great yogis of the world have known the power of using the breath to heal and calm the body; therefore, all forms of yoga are wonderful for improving health. I’ve personally found, however, that Bikram offers some unique and lasting benefits.

Bikram yoga, the Yoga College of India, was founded by Bikram Choudhury, who developed this form of yoga after suffering a depilating injury. At 17, he injured his knee during a weight-lifting accident. European doctors told him he would never walk again. Having practiced yoga since the age of 4 and retired as the All-India National Yoga Champion, he did not accept their pronouncement and had himself carried back to his yoga master, Bishnu Ghosh. Six months later, his knee had totally recovered. Ghosh was a celebrated physical culturist and the first to scientifically document Yoga’s ability to cure chronic physical ailments and heal the body.

Bikram was asked by Ghosh to start several Yoga schools in India. The schools were so successful that at Bishnu’s request, Bikram traveled to Japan. Today, his yoga is taught around the globe. The overall medical benefits to this form of yoga range from reducing high blood pressure to curbing thyroid disease. Each pose focuses on bringing specific health benefits to the body.

For example, here are the specific benefits of the first 10 poses in a Bikram class:

1. Standing deep breathing By helping the lungs reach their maximum expansion capacity, this pose can help clients with asthma and shortness of breath. It also increases circulation to the entire body.

2. Half Moon with Hands to Feet This pose provides quick energy and vitality, heating up the body; trimming the stomach, buttocks, hips and thighs; and improving the flexibility of the spine. In addition, blood circulation to the brain and legs is improved and the hamstrings are stretched out.

3. Awkward Pose People with generalized and gouty arthritis are known to benefit from this pose, which helps tone the legs and arms and strengthen and trim the body. By heating and energizing the body, this pose also makes the hip joints more flexible, relieves joint and muscular pain, and increases circulation to the knees and ankles.

4. Eagle Pose The pressure exerted by the crossing of the legs while balancing helps improve circulation to the sexual organs, thus helping to improve sexual vitality. This pose improves the flexibility of the 12 major joints in the body.

5. Standing Head to Knee The heart rate increases in this pose, which requires deep concentration, determination and patience. It’s great for the cardiovascular system.

6. Standing Bow Pulling Pose Increased circulation to the heart and lungs and improved elasticity of the spine are among the benefits of this pose, which requires a balance between strength and flexibility. It also activates the digestive system.

7. Balancing Stick Pose All arteries of the heart receive blood flow in this pose, theoretically clearing blockage in the arteries by flushing out the major coronary arteries. It also builds strength in the lower extremities, and works all muscles of the spine and lower extremities.

8. Standing Separate Leg Stretching This pose is known to help clients with depression, loss of memory and abdominal obesity. It increases circulation to the brain, releases tension in the lower back muscles, pushing the stomach in, and strengthens the diaphragm. Correctly done, the pose also helps to increase circulation to the adrenal glands because of the inverted position of the head.

9. Triangle Pose Known as the “master pose” because it works muscles, nerves, and tissues in the body, this pose theoretically flushes out the kidneys and increases the heart rate. Medical benefits can include relief from high blood pressure, hip and back pain, spondylitis and frozen shoulder. It can help general mobility.

10. Standing separate head to knee This pose has been known to help clients with depression, loss of memory, thyroid problems (mainly hypothyroidism) and diabetes. The pose requires the tucking in of the chin and placement of the forehead on the knee, which helps compress the thyroid, parathyroid glands and the thymus. In short, the poses, when done regularly and as directed, can help strengthen the body, inside and out, by bringing benefits to all muscle groups, the entire skeletal structure and internal organs.

As a trained physician, I’ve seen so many people heal their bodies and their minds through their practice of Bikram yoga. Seeing those results has been enormously rewarding. Even as a doctor, I stressed preventative medicine through lifestyle modifications. Bikram yoga allows me to take that philosophy to the next level.

We are all only born with one body until the day we take our last breath. We have to think carefully about what we are going to do to take the best possible care of the precious vessel we are given for our lifetime.