“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit.” –Aristotle
Heart disease afflicts 16.8 million Americans and costs more than $165 million a year.
However, the key to reversing coronary artery disease is not an expensive wonder drug, a new procedure, or a risky surgery. The key is something that people have been doing for thousands of years: yoga. I have been a practicing cardiologist since 1991 and have led cardiac reversal programs grounded in yoga for most of my career. I do so because yoga works.
My belief in the power of yoga stems in my personal experience as well as one particularly revolutionary study. The Lifestyle Heart Trial was a groundbreaking study conducted by Dr. Dan Ornish that definitively proved a yoga-based lifestyle could reverse heart disease. This trial was carefully designed due to the fact that it was undertaken at a time when traditional medicine had a very dim view of yoga and any other alternative approaches. Conventional wisdom at this time was that a chronic disease process might be slowed, but it could never be stopped completely.
For this study, Ornish recruited people already diagnosed with heart disease and divided them into two groups: the usual group and the yoga group. The usual group’s medical care plan incorporated all of the benefits modern health could offer at the time. The yoga group, on the other hand, was required to eat a nondairy, vegetarian, low fat, whole-food diet, commit to smoking cessation, exercise, practice yoga, and participate in a cardiac support group on a regular basis. The study results showed significant improvement in the disease process one year later in the yoga group and significant worsening of the disease process in the usual care group.
All in all, The Lifestyle Heart Trial proved that a yoga-based treatment program does indeed reverse heart disease, while the traditional medical model showed continued progression of heart disease. I became aware of Ornish’s work during my cardiology fellowship training and it dramatically changed my approach to medicine forever. Naturally, I wanted to model my practice after his ideologies. This spiraled into me leading two-hour cardiac wellness programs (including one hour of yoga followed by another hour of group support, free of charge) every Monday afternoon since November 1995.
I have been leading a cardiac reversal program, in one form or another, for 20 years now. This has been, perhaps, one of the greatest privileges of my life. Most people think of yoga as a physical fitness. While there is a physical aspect to yoga, in reality, yoga is all encompassing and involves everything that we do. The word yoga means union. When we make connection between the mind, the body, and the breath, we are practicing yoga. Some words I live my life by include “everything is connected” and if you practice yoga correctly this shall hold true.
The practices we traditionally associate with yoga, such as holding certain poses or meditating, are techniques designed to intensify this connection between mind, body, and breath. When this connection becomes our focus, yoga is no longer a fitness regimen. Rather, it is a healing practice. This connection is influenced by everything we do. Healing begins with how we think and act on every level. It is not a once-a-week workout. Health depends on everything, and yoga can be applied to everything. This is why when we engage in meaningful yoga practice, we are able to reverse heart disease.
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