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According to both the American Heart Association and the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology, practicing yoga benefits your heart. Remarkably, traditional yoga asana (like those taught at AHA Yoga in Lake City, FL) includes slow or moderate movements, so they are not part of the vigorous 150 minutes of aerobic exercise recommended by the American Heart Association. How, then, might yoga help heart health?
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Yoga lowers your blood pressure—often immediately. It also increases your lung capacity, and makes respiration throughout your body more efficient by boosting circulation. Even one session of yogic exercises combined with yogic breathing has been shown to reduce the production of cortisol and adrenaline, the hormonal markers of the sympathetic nervous system, or “fight, flight, or freeze” response, commonly just called “stress.”
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Strengthen the Container of the Heart
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To lessen suffering on an emotional level, we are often culturally demanded to “Open the heart!” and someone who is not well is often said to have “Closed his heart.” Yet, the tenets of a yogic lifestyle—though geared toward a fully vital heartfelt existence—do not suggest this romantic notion of throwing doors open of passionate exuberance. Quite the contrary; yogic tradition exhorts a proper lifestyle to nurture conditions for a healthy body—including that cardiac genius—and mental body (what the West often refers to as emotions). Proper physical care and exercise are the foundation.
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Gentle work and relaxation help the supportive structure of our body remain strong and resilient, and enhance physiological functioning, including immunity and circulation. Those interested in yoga must start at the basics: gentle aerobic exercise, a nutritious and well-suited diet, restorative sleep in the right amount, and a beneficial daily routine of waking, working, relating, and winding down.
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Physical yogic practices of “asana” (yoga postures) are also of great use for a healthy body. Through asana, pain and tension diminish as mobility enhances. Common ailments such as back pain, joint discomfort, or lessened mobilty can be reduced or even alleviated. Physical movement also supports mental health. As physical and emotional discomforts wane, overall quality of life improves. Alongside this tangible sense of embodied freedom, the yoga practitioner gains access to inner energy reserves that allows even subtler exercise. Here, Eastern & Western viewpoints converge: Working with the innermost functioning of the body provides the conditions for a happy, thriving heart.
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Yoga has also been shown to aid patients who have already suffered a major cardiac event, because it prevents or lessens emotional stress and depression that often result from heart attacks, surgery, and the like. While soothing the emotional layers of healing, yoga continues to unfold physically: Studies suggest yoga might reduce artery blockages, and it has shown to decrease chest pain for those with heart disease symptoms.
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It appears that the benefits of yoga are achieved largely through its effect upon the nervous system, especially through regulating hormonal functions and reducing inflammation. These improvements are multiplied when asanas (physical postures) are combined with breath training (strengthening the diaphragm) and pranayama (specialized breathing techniques). When the body and breath work in tandem, better health ensues.
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Your Resilient, Buoyant Heart
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Though poets applaud the constant heart, it turns out that the healthiest heart prizes variability. Cardiologists insist that heart health requires what is called “Heart Rate Variability (HRV).” Though it may at first sound counter-intuitive, if the heart beats too regularly, this is an indicator that something is amiss. Furthermore, this important capacity intimately links–as yogis have long taught and practiced–the heart to its companion, the breath.
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It turns out that a healthy heart will vary its rate: The heart will slightly speed up on a deep inhalation, and then decrease on a deep exhalation. If you think about when you are frightened or really exerting, you feel the pounding of the heart; it becomes more regular. This is needed for extreme measures–when action must get done quickly for precise means. The problem arises when the body does not return easily to the higher HRV (quickening rate on inhale and slowing rate on exhale). Those suffering from PTSD, for instance, have less variation in heart rate and more regularity (what is called “low HRV”). The same has been found for those suffering from COPD, cardiac disease, diabetes, as well as in populations who smoke.
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By working with the breath and gentle movement, yoga encourages high HRV, and therefore a well heart and regulated nervous system.
Yoga also improves intereoception, the ability to notice what is going on within the body. In addition to improving HRV, continued yoga practice encourages awareness of internal states. If you have ever forgotten to drink water and become dehydrated, or let eating slip your mind until you found yourself hangry, these are grand examples of lessening interoception. You can also notice when you are holding your breath due to stress; prolonged disrupted breathing disrupts the heart. As you maintain interoception, you can make better behavioral choices to support your physical health and well-being. You become the stalwart caretaker of strong, flexible container for your healthy heart.
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Yet, there are even more reasons to focus upon a healthy body and mind, and how this supports the heart. Heart health far surpasses its physiological benefits. According to yogic teachings, we often forget our true nature. The outward strivings of the mind, including tons of sensory input, clouds our perception of who we truly are and the potentials naturally, potently residing within. Yoga teaches that consciousness itself is radiant, life-sustaining light; this illumination is our true nature.. It exists everywhere, yet is particularly concentrated within a precious human life and, moreover, its most potent point is within the heart center.
This effulgent light of the heart is known in Sanskrit, the language of yoga, as “Jyotishmati.” This illumination remains the essence of innate intelligence, peaceful knowing, lasting compassion, deep joy, and unconditional love. Like the sun, joytishmati shines upon and sustains all. However, we tend to ignore or obscure this powerful inner valence of the heart. Sustained practice is what removes the cloudiness that dulls this inner luminosity. Yet, what types of practice might be surprising.
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Stick Around & Relax
In addition to the physical poses and breathing exercises, a well-rounded yoga session includes final systematic relaxation. This is often called Savasana, the formal name for the pose of final relaxation. At the end of your yoga class, though it may seem as if you are “not doing anything,” this pose and honing your capacity to release systematically, are advanced practices. Final relaxation is part of the integrative and more meditative process for your body and mind. Moreover, according to Harvard Medical School, such a well-rounded yoga routine contributes to heart benefits. If you are new to yoga, it might be time to give it a try for your happy, healthy heart; be sure to stick around and relax. This nurtures the heart as well as its lasting inner radiance.
With time, sustained practice maintained over a long period of time with tender, reverent care also unfolds the most lasting and pure benefits of the heart, revealing its own life-sustaining radiance. You have a heart; so keep practicing and foster the conditions to let it shine.
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If you’re ready for a little strengthening alongside challenging your capacity for balance, be sure to check out our upcoming Saturday Yoga Sweet Treat, GET A LEG UP!, with many asana (postures & stretches) leading up to Utthita Hasta Padangusthasana (Extended Had to Toe Pose) & easy variations. All levels welcome. We meet March 7, 10 to 11 am.
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Or, if you’re ready to work with gentle, supine postures, allowing deep release alongside subtle breath-work, join us for Restorative Yoga to Rest the Body & Calm Mind. This is a workshops, so a luscious longer session on Sunday afternoon, March 29.
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Do what you need to support your happy, healthy heart.
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Sources:
Bullock, B. Grace. “New Study Shows that Stress in the Brain May Be a Warning Sign for Heart Disease. Can Yoga help?” Yoga International. Last modified July 11, 2016. https://yogainternational.com/article/view/new-study-shows-signs-of-stress-in-the-brain-may-be-a-warning-sign-for-hear
Cohen, Debbie, and Raymond R. Townsend. “Yoga and Hypertension.” The Journal of Clinical Hypertension 9, no. 10 (October 2007): 800-801.
Corliss, Judy. “More than a Stretch.” Harvard Health Blog. Last modified April 15, 2015. http://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/more-than-a-stretch-yogas-benefits-may-extend-to-the-heart-201504157868
Friedrichsen, Shari. “Yoga for the Heart,” Wisdom Library, Himalayan Institute (July 5, 2018).
Kahn, Joel. “Why Yoga and Heart Rate are So Important: A Cardiologist Explains.” Mindbodygreen.com
McCall, Timothy. MD. “A Holistic Approach to Heart Disease.” Yoga Journal. Last modified June 27, 2011. http://www.yogajournal.com/article/health/straight-heart/
Vinay, A.V. et al. “Impact of short-term practice of yoga on heart rate variability.” Int J Yoga. 2016 Jan-Jun; 9(1): 62–66.
Walton, Alice G. “Yoga May Reduce Risk Factors of Heart Disease, Study Finds.” Forbes, on-line edition. Last modified December 17, 2014. http://www.forbes.com/sites/alicegwalton/2014/12/17/yoga-may-help-prevent-heart-disease-study-finds/#721514467729
“Yoga and Heart Health.” American Heart Association. Last modified April 10, 2014. http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/HealthyLiving/PhysicalActivity/Yoga-and-Heart-Health_UCM_434966_Article.jsp#.Vvsd49wrLIU
“The Yoga-Heart Connection.” Johns Hopkins Medicine. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/healthy_heart/move_more/the-yoga-heart-connection
Additional Resources:
Subtle/Esoteric Anatomy and the Heart, “The Ancient Science of Living from the Heart.”
