Can Yoga Help You Drop Your Blood Pressure?

There have been over 120 studies that suggest yoga may reduce your blood pressure (BP). The studies include focus on relaxation, breathing, integrated yoga techniques and biofeedback, and spent 1 week to 4 years of follow-up with the number of participants ranging from 1 to 428. The total people studied were 6693, including both healthy and sick persons and included 389 elderly and 299 adolescent participants. In total, the studies included 2415 hypertensive individuals.

The sum of these studies consistently reported reductions in blood pressure together with reductions in other CVD risk factors such as lipid profile and glycemic index. Yoga was also found to reduce hypertension in patients taking medications and to get off their medications while maintaining reduced BP. The following is a synopsis of the most significant findings from the publication Today’s Practitioner:

· Hypertensive patients who attended a 30-minute session of biofeedback and yogic relaxation over 3 months, reported a reduction in BP, with a 41% reduction in antihypertensive medication. In a 6-week study, pharmacologically treated hypertensive patients were found to experience significant reductions in BP and serum cholesterol, and a further study with hypertensive patients using the same intervention also resulted in a significant reduction in BP, together with a significant reduction in cholesterol and triglyceride levels.

· Among 204 participants with 2 or more coronary risk factors, in which both groups received general health education, while the treatment group also received weekly 1-hour, group biofeedback and yoga sessions for 8 weeks, together with twice daily home practice and a stress education program. After 8 months, BP fell significantly in all participants in the treatment group, with a more prominent fall in BP in hypertensive participants.

· Many different yoga practices and styles can be adapted or individualized by teachers and practitioners, yet a common element of these practices appears to be the practical application of mind-body integration with the use of the breath as a focus for the link between mind and body. Yoga practices generally lead to a calm, quiet, hypometabolic, meditative state associated with autonomic balance and characterized by positive physiological changes and improved cardio, circulatory, and respiratory function. Therefore, yoga may influence BP through reducing the stressresponse, increasing parasympathetic activation, and altering baroreceptor sensitivity.

· Yoga practices have been shown to be effective in reducing BP in normotensive and hypertensive populations and to be effective as an adjunct therapy in reducing antihypertensive medication use.

The relationship between hypertension and the risk of cardiovascular events, stroke, and kidney disease is continuous, consistent, and independent of other risk factors.