Exploring Yoga as a Holistic Lifestyle for Sustainable Human and Environmental Health.

Sustainable living means different things to different people. For some, it’s personal sustainability—keeping oneself going with enough money and energy to get by. For others, it’s a global thing. But yoga offers some great lessons on sustainable living that transcends both spheres, melding them into one prevailing lifestyle and mindset that can create abundance in our personal lives as well as the life we share with everyone and everything around us.

Yoga is an ancient physical and spiritual practice that originated in INDIA and has been practiced for more than 5,000 years as a pathway to achieve spiritual enlightenment and union of the mind, body, and spirit (Birdee et al., 2008; Iyengar, 1976). The mind-body practice of yoga has made great gains in popularity in the Western world, especially the United States (Kappmeier & Ambrosini, 2006). The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of mixed styles of yoga practice on the health and behaviors of yoga practitioners. Depending on the type and depth of yoga practice, practitioners may adopt a wide variety of practices and behaviors based upon yoga philosophies that elicit a positive impact on health. Yoga is a holistic practice that may provide a natural and sustainable solution to the treatment and prevention of chronic diseases and medical conditions and also a lifestyle that promotes environmental sustainability (Marlow et al., 2009; National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, 2012). This study was conducted to identify potential solutions to the unsustainable Western medical practices that have been unable to successfully treat and reduce morbidity and mortality from chronic diseases in the United States. Not only are the medical treatments unsustainable, but the dietary practices, such as convenience and processed foods, which have evolved in the western world, are also unsustainable because they are contributing to the increased prevalence of chronic diseases (Horrigan, Lawrence, & Walker, 2002). Increased use of pesticides and preservatives and consumption of meat and processed food high in saturated and trans fats, refined sugar, 2 and salt result in diets that are low in micronutrients and promote chronic disease development and obesity. These factors also contribute to environmental pollution, environmental degradation, and increased consumption of natural resources and energy (Horrigan et al., 2002). Due to the inextricable connection between human and environmental health, solutions to these issues must be addressed in unison. Potential positive social change implications from this study are two-fold if results of the study support the hypotheses. The first social change recommendation is the incorporation of yoga education and practice into public health initiatives as a preventative measure for chronic disease and promotion of healthy and sustainable dietary practices. The second is the increased integration of yoga practice into Western medicine as an alternative treatment for symptoms and management of chronic disease for medical system sustainability. Integration of yoga into prevention and treatment of chronic diseases has the potential capacity to alleviate symptoms of medical conditions, reduce the need for prescription drug treatments and their potential side effects, reduce medical costs, decrease morbidity and mortality, improve quality of life, and promote environmental sustainability.  

RC: scholarworks.waldenu.edu