TEMPE AZ: In Arizona State University (ASU) in Tempe, a health researcher has undertaken a study to determine if online yoga can help people faced with grief of stillbirth or rare blood cancer symptoms.
Dr. Jennifer Huberty, an associate professor at the School of Nutrition and Health Promotion in the College of Health Solutions, and her team at ASU are expected to receive a grant of about half-a-million dollars from US National Institutes of Health (NIH) for investigating yoga’s effects on symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder after stillbirth.
Participants access online yoga sessions through a site which offers a collection of over 400 classes, health-wellness challenges and fitness programs; reports indicate.
An additional about $2.5 million grant will reportedly be sought from NIH by ASU in the next year in partnership with Mayo, for examining yoga’s effects on symptom burden in patients of Myeloproliferative Neoplasm (MPN), which is a kind of rare blood cancer. It would reportedly explore the online-streaming-yoga’s efficacy in reducing fatigue and improving the quality of life.
There was a significant improvement in depressive symptoms, anxiety, sleep and symptom burden in a feasibility study ASU recently conducted over a 12-week period with 30 MPN patients, reports claim.
The ASU efforts to explore yoga’s healing effects have been accorded universal accolade by yoga lovers, especially Indian Americans.
Founded in 1885, ASU, which claims to be “a top ranked research university”, was ranked number one among the “Most Innovative Schools” in America. Michael M. Crow is ASU President, while Keith Lindor is Dean of College of Health Solutions.
Dr Tanmay Goswami, an ardent follower of Yoga and practicing Ayurvedacharya, said that the news gains significance as it comes close on heels of Yoga lovers across the world celebrating Second Yoga International day this week. Dr Goswami is an advisor to the Indian government Yoga program, Ayush
Rajan Zed, president of Universal Society of Hindusim, said that although introduced and nourished by Hinduism, yoga was a world heritage and liberation powerhouse to be utilized by all.
According to Patanjali who codified it in Yoga Sutra, yoga was a methodical effort to attain perfection, through the control of the different elements of human nature, physical and psychical.
Yoga, referred as “a living fossil”, was a mental and physical discipline, for everybody to share and benefit from, whose traces went back to around 2,000 BCE to Indus Valley civilization, Zed, who is President of Universal Society of Hinduism, pointed out.
Surendra Ullal
