I am a member of the International Association of Yoga Therapists, and they put out a yearly journal of scholarly research on yoga.  I went to their first ever conference in January 2007 and was blown away by the resources (time and money) being invested into “proving” how yoga works for people.   I was mostly excited by it, but also a little worried that we were narrowing yoga’s efficacy down to what could be “proven” in a double-blind, randomized, controlled trial. 

I found this article in the NYTimes very interesting because it points out some of the other problems with “studying” yoga through scientific research.  Interestingly, Sat Bir Khalsa is interviewed in the article.  I met him at the conference in 2007 and he casually invited me to participate as a teacher in his insomnia study at Harvard Medical School.  I didn’t follow up, mostly because I wanted to focus on other aspects of yoga teaching and studying in my work.   But I think his work is interesting and will probably yield some very positive results for yoga.   I know from many many students how helpful yoga is for their insomnia.

Here’s a fascinating list of 77 health benefits from yoga practice.  This information is based off of many of the small studies that the NYTimes article mentions.  

Anyway, may each of us keep “proving” in our own ways how much yoga works!
Namaste,

Barrett