Current medical research articles detail the health benefits of yoga practice for a variety of health issues. These include pain relief, improved flexibility, bone health, and/or support for an overall better quality lifestyle. Here is a small selection of books, many very well illustrated, that focus on the use of yoga for a specific condition. With the exception of The Yoga for Osteoporosis by Dr. Loren Fishman and Ellen Saltonstall which will be published in March 2010, all of the titles are currently in print.
Yoga as Medicine: The Yogic Prescription for Health and Healing, by the Yoga Journal and Timothy McCall. Bantam; 2007. Included are twenty chapters featuring noted yoga instructors describing their approaches to specific conditions—panic attacks, carpal tunnel syndrome, depression, infertility, cancer, etc. They offer advice, rather than fixed protocols.
Yoga for Arthritis: The Complete Guide, by Loren Fishman MD and Ellen Saltonstall. W. W. Norton & Company, 2008. This heavily illustrated guide helps readers understand arthritis and gives a spectrum of exercises for beginners and experts. Broken down into chapters focusing on each major joint, there are 100 classical yoga poses and numerous imaginative and physiologically sound adapted poses, all with step-by-step instructions and photo demonstrations.
Yoga for Osteoporosis: The Complete Guide, by Loren Fishman MD and Ellen Saltonstall. W. W. Norton & Company — forthcoming publication date: March 29, 2010. Offers a medical yoga program designed for the management and prevention of osteoporosis, with hundreds of illustrations. Classical yoga poses, as well as physiologically sound adapted poses, are presented with detailed instructions and photographs.
Yoga for Anxiety: Meditations and Practices for Calming the Body and Mind, by Mary Nurriestearns and Rick Nurriestearns, New Harbinger Publications 2010. Mary NurrieStearns, a psychotherapist and yoga teacher, and Rick NurrieStearns, a meditation teacher, present self-healing techniques for generalized anxiety disorder drawn from the yogic tradition.
Yoga for Pain Relief: Simple Practices to Calm Your Mind & Heal Your Chronic Pain, by Kelly McGonical. New Harbinger Publications, 2009. Stanford psychology instructor and well-known yoga teacher Kelly McGonigal shows readers how yoga and the latest skills drawn from mind-body research can help alleviate chronic pain.
Yoga for Movement Disorders: Rebuilding Strength, Balance and Flexibility for Parkinson's Disease and Dystonia (Spiral-bound), by Renee Le Verrier. Merit Publishing, 2008. Designed for people with dystonia, muscle imbalance, rigidity, and spasms due to such causes as Parkinson's, stroke, and multiple sclerosis. The focus is on rebuilding strength and flexibility as well as physical and emotional balance. The author is a certified yoga instructor and a Parkinson's Disease patient. She specilizes in teaching yoga to movement disordered patients. Foreword by Dr. Lewis Sudarsky, Director of the Movement Disorder Clinic at Brigham & Women's Hospital in Boston; Associate Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School.
Yoga and Multiple Sclerosis: A Journey to Health and Healing, by Loren Martin Fishman MD, and Eric Small. Demos Health, 2007. Designed to manage symptoms, raise functional abilities. Co-author Eric Small was diagnosed with MS at the age of 22, and soon after became a serious student of Iyengar yoga, which has helped him greatly with the effects of his illness. He has been teaching yoga since the mid-1960s.
Healing Addiction with Yoga: A Yoga Program for People in 12-Step Recovery, by Annalisa Cunningham, Findhorn Press, 3rd ed., 2010. The author is a certified yoga teacher and a communications teacher with a background in counseling. The book presents a 21-day yoga regimen using relaxation techniques, nutrition and lifestyle suggestions, aerobic activities, and journal writing, all geared to incorporate the 12-step philosophy into yoga practice. The featured poses are drawn from the popular hatha yoga tradition. Newly updated and revised.
