Yoga and Health Care

yjdeepak.jpgDeepak Chopra recently wrote an article in The Huffington Post raving calmly, the way he does, about the benefits of yoga, about the 16 million Americans now practicing yoga, about its effects on sleep, depression and anxiety, migraines, low back pain, blood pressure, and stress.

For the last 10 of my 20 years as a chiropractor, I suspected strongly that if my patients began meditating and doing yoga, their problems would diminish if not disappear. I still believe that, and can’t imagine a more constructive prescription coming from any health care practitioner. As much as I loved and respected my profession, there’s a reason I write about yoga and meditation now rather than practicing in a clinic.
We’re a culture of people who look for outside answers and outside interventions (swallow this, inject this, micromanage the nutrients of this, do 15 repetitions of this, watch your numbers, Dr. So-and-so says this), and who have grown to trust less in our own capacity to generate our own healing and well-being than in what the latest, heavily marketed press release tells us about our bodies.

Here’s what I love about yoga and meditation today: I love their simplicity. I love the way they encourage me to know my own energy thoroughly and intimately. I love the way I practice listening to my body with every class, every sitting. I love the quiet. Quiet is the place where great questions and great answers reside. Lastly, I love the way I discover my own truths. I’m convinced that making our own discoveries is a prerequisite for finding our way to good health. How healthy can we be if we never learn to listen to and trust ourselves?

Thanks to Deepak, not for prescribing, but for eloquently pointing the way to the mat. Thanks to the mat for pointing the way to ourselves. Thanks to yoga and to meditation for being here for all of us. And thanks to you, always, for the conversation,

kristin

Dr.
Kristin Shepherd is a chiropractor, actor, and speaker (About All
Things Wonderful) in North Bay, Ontario.  Join her on the
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