That’s not according to the Yoga Chamber of Commerce. That’s according to 61-year-old Nancy Wren of Matthews, who first relied on yoga to help her through pregnancy — and labor — in the 1970s, and more recently used it to cope with the physical demands and stress of helping her ill husband, and then to help her through the grieving process when he died. Wren is something of a poster child for the several-thousand-year-old practice of yoga, which the Mayo Clinic defines as “an alternative medicine practice [that] brings together physical and mental disciplines to achieve peacefulness of body and mind, helping you relax and manage stress and anxiety.”

That “miracle drug” nature of yoga is the topic of my story today in the Charlotte Observer and The News & Observer. Read the story (or return to this space tomorrow for an expanded version with links), then return here for direction on where you can learn more.

Learn more …

Overall health benefits of Yoga
So what are those benefits? The Mayo Clinic gives a good overview in the online article, “Yoga: Tap into the many health benefits.”

Yoga, from Ashtanga to Vinyasa
There are many different variations of yoga on the market. Some, as Chapel Hill-based yoga instructor and writer Carol Krucoff writes for the Huffington Post in “Are You Practicing Yoga or Yoga-Flavored Exercise?” adhere more to basic tenants of yoga. For a good overview of the different types of yoga, check out the About.com Yoga Style Guide.

Yoga and … golf?
Bill Glasheen credits yoga with enabling him to keep his Sunday morning tee-time for the past decade. Diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease 13 years ago, Glasheen, who is 73 and lives in Monroe, turned to yoga to help control the shaking and difficulty walking associated with the disease. “It’s something anyone can do,” he says of the Kripalu yoga class he takes Saturday mornings. “Even if you’re crippled.” Learn more about yoga for golfers at YogaforGolfers.com.

My achin’ neck
Back pain is one of the most common maladies in America, affecting nearly everyone at one point or another. It affected Carol Krucoff, a yoga practitioner and health writer for the Washington Post in the 1980s. Using what she’d learned from yoga, she began tweaking her practice to address her chronic neck and shoulder issues and before long, no more neck and back issues. She shares her approach in her book, “Healing Yoga for Neck & Shoulder Pain” (2010, New Harbinger Publications).

Yoga and depression
Nancy Nicholson uses yoga in her social work practice — or does she use social work in her yoga practice? The Charlotte instructor uses her background in both — she’s a licensed clinical social worker in North Carolina and is certified in various forms of yoga, including her LifeForce Yoga Certification — to help patients suffering from addictions, anxiety, abuse, depression and grief. “We use different breathing techniques to create more energy and to help you calm down. … The movements can be very grounding.” Learn more about yoga and its applications for dealing with mental health issues at YogaforDepression.com.

Yoga and weight loss?
You don’t burn a lot of calories with most forms of yoga, but some practitioners say it can have a more profound effect on your weight by helping to strengthen the mind-body connection. See what WebMD has to say on the subject.

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Move more and eat better in 2011 using these seven simple strategies:

1. Mix it up. The big trend in fitness isn’t one thing, it’s everything. Avoid drudgery, avoid stressing the same muscles and work your entire body by doing a variety of workouts. “Incorporating several different forms of exercise in a training program can be an excellent way to develop the various components of fitness,” according to the American Council on Exercise. If your goal is to lose weight, varying your exercise regimen — walking one day, lifting weights the next, taking a Zumba class after that — keeps your muscles from becoming too efficient at any one exercise and thus burning fewer calories.

2. Find what works. If you don’t enjoy it, you won’t do it. Think, personal trainers advise, about what you like to do, or what you liked to do in the past. Did you love riding your bike as a kid? A preponderance of fun-to-ride bikes — from the aptly named “comfort” bikes to speedier and more aggressive urban bikes — has flooded the market, and with nearly 150 miles of greenway in the Triangle, it’s easy for the grown-up you to rekindle your childhood love. Or maybe you get so caught up in the joy of dance you don’t realize you’ve had a good workout until the following morning. Zumba, dance exercise with a Latin zing, and Nia, a marriage of dance, the martial arts and the “healing arts,”  are two popular dance options.

3. Eat smart, eat simple. It’s a paradox, but the more we learn about food, the poorer we seem to eat. Good-eating advocate and author Michael Pollan writes in his latest book, “Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual,” “for all the scientific and pseudoscientific food baggage we’ve taken on in recent years, we still don’t know what we should be eating.” Pollan, whose “In Defense of Food” and “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” were both best-sellers, doesn’t claim to have all the answers, but his “Food Rules” offers 64 succinct suggestions for common-sense eating. They range from “Don’t eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food” to “Shop the peripheries of the supermarket and stay out of the middle” (fresh food generally lines the walls, processed foods are in the aisles). Some suggestions are only a sentence; none takes up more than a page.

4. Try the unthinkable. Running, for instance. Few exercises elicit a more visceral negative reaction than running. Yet an increasing number of people who find their metabolism slowing as they pass 40 are turning to running as a way to keep the pounds off. Consider: A 170-pound person who walks three miles in an hour will burn 337 calories; that same person will burn more than twice that many calories (775) running six miles in an hour. One reason running doesn’t seem as arduous anymore: an explosion of walk-to-run programs. A walk-to-run 5K program takes nonrunners and, over the course of 12 weeks, converts their walks into runs to the point that they can run an entire 5K (3.1 miles).

5. It’s a lifestyle, not a quick fix. There’s a reason programs such as Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig and TOPS have been around so long while the all-grapefruits-all-the-time diet fads quickly fade. Fad diets — promising fast results based on a quick fix — may work in the short term, but once you’ve dropped that 20 pounds, you’re back to your old, bad habits. Programs that focus on changing behavior have a better chance of helping you lose weight and keep it off. According to WebMD.com, a healthy weight-loss program should include a daily minimum of 1,000 to 1,200 calories for women and 1,200 to 1,600 for men; promote slow, gradual weight loss, generally 1 to 2 pounds a week; offer flexibility in food offerings; and not cut back on your recommended daily allowance of vitamins, minerals and proteins.

6. Find a support group. Look at it as misery loves company, if you must, but knowing you’re not alone in any challenge can make a difference. According to the Mayo Clinic, “A support group can help you cope better and feel less isolated as you make connections with others facing similar challenges.” In a convenience store getting hit on by Little Debbies? A fellow dieter who can talk you down is just a cell phone call away. And for those times after a long day of work when you don’t think you have the strength for Pilates? The guilt of knowing your classmates are gutting it out should be enough to get your butt in gear.

7. Persevere. Losing weight, moving more and adopting a healthier lifestyle aren’t easy. It won’t happen, in a healthy way, over night. And studies have shown that most resolutions fall by the wayside before January is over. But if you slip up, don’t throw in the towel. According to a study by the University of Scranton, 71 percent of people surveyed who achieved their resolution slipped up at least once (and usually early on, in January). So you miss a day at the gym or a seductive slice of cheesecake crushes your vow of no desserts? Look at why you slipped up — maybe five days a week at the gym is too much with your schedule, maybe one dessert a week isn’t a bad thing — and adjust if you think it will help you reach your goal, and carry on.

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