| The Ornish program uses Hatha yoga, which involves specialized breathing and a series of poses — in combination with complementary techniques — meditation and visualization, for example — to help lower pulse rate, cholesterol level and blood pressure, improve respiration, endocrine function and circulation, normalize weight, enhance flexibility, and impart deep relaxation. Yoga, like resistance training, increases muscularity, but without making excessive demands on the body.
“We use gentle yoga during the first half of the program and gradually bring in more challenging poses, but never anything the participants can’t easily breathe through,” says Lindberg, a registered nurse who also uses yoga for pulmonary patients. She suggests one hour of yoga a day to achieve best curative and preventive results.
“Sixty minutes of gentle yoga and the body feels as if it’s just had three or four hours of rest,” she says. Research suggests yoga elevates serotonin levels, leading to a greater sense of serenity and well being, which is critical to controlling dangerous stress levels.
“Heart disease is progressive,” says Lindberg. “Despite all the treatments we have, all the modern technology, why is heart disease still the number one killer of Americans? Because they’re not making the lifestyle changes they need to once they’ve had the procedures. One of the changes is controlling the stress in their lives…once they’re in the program they learn to identify stress and how to handle it.”
Even when adapted to accommodate the special needs of heart patients, yoga appears to directly affect internal organs and their efficient operation. Specific poses effectively reroute blood to the heart, while traditional yogic breathing exercises have a calming effect on the agitated heart muscle.
Take A Deep Breath:
“I stress the importance of learning different breathing techniques — the three-part breath and alternate nostril breathing — so important for the mind, body, breath connection,” says Lindberg.
Alternate nostril breathing is an excellent daily exercise for lowering blood pressure, relieving insomnia and alleviating anxiety:
- Choose a quiet spot, sit erect and breathe deeply through your nose.
- Using your right thumb, press on your right nostril; exhale through your left nostril. Then inhale slowly, breathing deep into your stomach and chest.
- Don’t strain. Breathe gently and smoothly. Repeat using the other nostril.
- Try to make exhalation twice as long as inhalation i.e., breathe in for five, breathe out for ten
- Finish by deep breathing through both nostrils.
- Do two rounds, once or twice a day. Increase gradually over period of weeks.
“The cardiac patients who take advantage of the yoga class offered through regular rehab feel it’s been a lifesaver,” Lindberg reports. |
