editor's blog

It's well known that yoga is one of the best cross-training activities for a host of high-impact sports - running, tennis, squash - that can challenge the bodies joints and lead to injury.

Fresh from his Wimbledon quarter-final defeat to Rafael Nadal, tennis player Andy Murray is the latest high profile sportsperson to sing yoga's praises - apparently Bikram has become integral to his training routine.

He credits the so-called 'hot' yoga - a set sequence of asanas practised in a room heated to temperatures of over 40 degrees celcius - with improving his mental focus and physical endurance.

Amateur golfer Steven Rennie is also a recent yoga convert: 'It pushes you mentally and physically, and different poses are perfect for the muscles I used in the golf swing', he told the BBC.

Along with tennis and golf (which especially benefits from yoga's emphasis on maintaining focus), runners stand to benefit from a regular yoga practice.

During the course of a mile-long run, a runner's foot will strike the ground around 1,000 times - and the force of impact on each foot is up to four times your weight.

No surprise, then, that common injuries among runners include bad backs, tight hamstrings, sore feet and painful knees.

A regular yoga practice won't safeguard professional and amateur athletes from injury. But it will lessen the risk by strengething and lengthening all the instrinsic muscle groups, keeping the joints supple and bringing you more in tune with your breath and natural capabilities.

Perhaps Bikram will help Andy Murray work miracles at next year's Wimbledon championships. Here's hoping.

Lucia Cockcroft, editor

It's an unusal week when something supposedly new and outlandish fails to emerge from America. At the moment it's the turn of the bizarre sounding 'phone yoga'.

New York is one of the world's top yoga cities, with a plethora of world-class studios and a loyal army of yoga fans to boot.

Now, it seems, they can take advantage of one-on-one phone yoga sessions for people out of town but still in need of a yoga 'fix'.

Some students are claiming it feels as though the yoga instructor giving instructions across the other end of the room is 'right there with them'.

Julie Wald, owner of Namaste New York, told the www.nydailynews.com: 'A lot of our clients travel quite a bit, and are often in remote places or where they're not able to access yoga. They also have very deep and fulfilling relationships wtih their yoga instructors.'

Apparently, Wald has conducted about 20 phone yoga sessions, which she says is the same concept as listening to a DVD or CD, but personalised.

If phone yoga takes of (and in New York, anything's possible) it will be an interesting measure of the huge influence a yoga teacher can have on a student. You could look at the concept a wacky, watered-down Western take on Indian's Guru system.

By Lucia Cockcroft, editor

Yet more warnings are afoot about the ravaging effects of stress on body and mind. This latest research was commissioned by the makers of Anadin and focuses, unsurprisingly, on headaches - specifically, on the role of stress in causing one of our most common physical complaints.

Over a third of Britons - equivalent to 20.3 million people - say the have more headaches than ever before, the findings say. Women are especially prone, with almost a third reporting to be plagued by stress headaches, compared to a quarter of men.

By and large, stress headaches are preventable. The press release that landed in my inbox about this research blithely urges consumers to reach for a 'combination treatment' - a heady (pun intended) cocktail of aspirin, paracetamol and caffeine.

I'm no doctor, but the knee-jerk response of grabbing the nearest quick-fix tablet is exactly what headache sufferers don't need.

Medication - even some headache tablets - can be addictive, short-termist and laced with side-effects. Recognising why and where stress headaches are occurring and taking some rounded steps to minimise the pain, is surely the only sensible option.

Yoga is one of the very best anti-stress, anti-headache remedies - plus it's free, long lasting, and doesn't come with the dubious multi-million pound stamp of the pharmaceutical industry.

Anyone with severe, regularly occurring headaches should see their doctor for advice (and make sure they don't just come away with a tablet).

But in general, headache sufferers should focus on strong on deep, slow breathing in their yoga, and remember to relax the eyes, jaw, tongue and forehead. Keep the neck long and soft, and use a bolster (lying down on it) to help open the chest and upper body.

The emphasis should be on a soft, breath-focused practice rather edges towards restorative rather than dynamic.

Equally importantly, integrating meditation into a practice - preferably at the end, for about 5 or 10 minutes - can help ease tension and de-stress.

Sometimes reaching for the nearest quick-fix is the last thing we need.

Lucia Cockcroft, editor

New research suggests a vegan, low fat diet combined with yoga and exercise, can help fight prostate cancer.

Researchers at the non-profit Preventive Medicine Research Institute and the University of California found that the double whammy of yoga and diet can switch off genes that fight disease such as cancer.

Men with low-risk prostate cancer who made improvements in fitness, stress management and nutrition altered the use of genes that have a role in tumour progression.

For the pilot project, Dr Dean Ornish devised a vegan diet for patients, along with yoga, and found a resulting 'striking' effect on the way genes work. Apparently Ornish was inspired by studies showing that prostate cancer is rarer in parts of the world where people eat a predominantly low-fat, plant-based diet.

Ed Young, health information manager at Cancer Research UK, told the Telegraph: 'People often think that their odds of getting cancer are written in their genes. But studies like this suggest that changing your lifestyle can change the activity of your genes, and that nature can be changed by nurture.'

Interestingly, Ornish also advocates walking 2,000 steps per day, and consuming 100 calories less per day.

All fairly obvious stuff, in some ways, but still habits that our sedentary, over-indulgent lifestyles often have little room for.

It would be interesting to learn what type of yoga patients were exposed to, and how big a role it played in the research. I'll report back if I hear more.

Lucia Cockcroft, editor

This Saturday, The Guardian and The Times devoted almost a full page to controversial Indian guru, Baba Ramdev. The coverage is a measure of the ever-wider influence Ramdev is having in India, and even further afield.

Baba Ramdev is credited by some as bringing yoga back to India; the charismatic yoga guru is beloved of middle class Indians, many of whom credit him with helping to restore their health - or offering hope of a cure.

Every morning, he appears on a dedicated Indian TV channel, chanting prayers and offering pranayama exercises and asanas that he claims will cure an astonishing panoply of illnesses - from back pain to HIV and cancer. More than 20 million Indians tune in to see him every day.

Ramdev's latest scheme is a cruise. But it doesn't come cheap: the yoga cruise from India to China cost participants £1,000 a ticket.

Another new venture charged patients up to 40,000 rupees (almost £500) to be amount the first to spend week at a village of 300 bungalows offering spiritual retreat.

In Indian terms, this is a fabulous amount of money - clearly only the middle and upper classes will have the financial means to go along.

I'm deeply sceptical about Ramdev's motives. There's no doubt he hails from a humble background, has plenty of stage presence and can perform an asana seamlessly.

But when, last year, I went to see him perform in London, I came away with a strong feeling that performing - and charging for the pleasure - was what this man does best.

If Ramdev's aims are so altruistic, and he's genuine about spreading the benefits of yoga practice, why charge such extortionate prices?

It's undeniably a good thing that he is helping a generation of Indians re-discover yoga and the yoga lifestyle - there's little arguing with his assertion that 30 minutes of asana practice every day, combined with pranayama (breathing) techniques and a vegetarian diet, will improve health.

But his extravagant claims that yoga as a cure for terminal illnesses such as cancer is dangerous, disingenuous and dubious. Yoga is great - but there's a limit to what it can do.

Read my post about seeing Ramdev live in London.

Fraudster or saviour: what do you think about Ramdev? Please log in and share your thoughts.

Lucia Cockcroft

editor

As a postscript - I received this email from a Yoga Abode reader and Indian national named Nalini. I am posting his comment here because it reflects an important 'other' viewpoint that we in the West aren't often exposed to:

'Ramdev does speak out at the politicians, and multinationals, but don't forget that he is the only one who can.

There was a time when thugs were ruling India, and no one dare speak out. Swami Ramdev did in his early morning sessions. He dared to confront lots of bent politicians in his slot. The Indian Press and public were with him, but he is not a dangerous man as suggested in the Guardian recently.

The multinationals like Coca Cola and Pepsi needed confronting as well - in India these drinks were analysed, and they were found to contain harmful insecticide. Cocacola and pepsi have 8 spoons of sugar in one helping, Indians are more prone to diabetes, does it not make sense to make the public aware?
India now has progressed tremendously and Swami Ramdev is using TV medium which is widely available in India - even in the slums - to get his message across to the masses.

Yog is our heritage with good side effects. The western media should try out his "brand" of yoga as they call it before they slate Swami Ramdev and call him derogatory names.

He is a respected Guru. He is very charismatic and can hold the attention of 50,000 to 100,000 people on a daily basis for up to 3 hours and with no need for police for crowd control as in a football match. Doesn't that say something?

We are in the 21st century, we should think globally not nationally. For a change, look at what he has to give. He has come down from his cave in the Himalayas to give back health to people - OM.'