Headstand can have just as many risks as benefits. Here are a few things to consider before going up. by Timothy McCall, MD Last year, after developing a nerve blockage in the chest called thoracic outlet syndrome, I stopped doing Sirsasana (Headstand). In the months prior, I’d worked up to holding the pose for 10… [Read More]

In unexpected ways, yoga can help you lose weight. by Timothy McCall, MD Yoga is so much more than a weight-loss program, but it has helped many people shed extra pounds, even some who have spent years trying to slim down in other ways without success. Studies show that a complete yoga program—asana, breathing techniques,… [Read More]

Stress, Your Health, and Yoga by Timothy McCall, MD As I travel around the globe teaching workshops on yoga therapy—the use of yogic tools from postures to meditation to help people heal—I am struck by what an enormous problem stress-related illness is. Everywhere I go, from ultramodern cities like Stockholm where I’ve spent the last… [Read More]

Yoga Journal’s Medical Editor Explains How Yoga Improves Health by Timothy McCall, MD Just weeks before my trip to India in 2002 to investigate yoga therapy and Indian research on yoga, I developed intermittent numbness and tingling in my righthand. After briefly considering scary things like a brain tumor and multiplesclerosis, I figured out that… [Read More]

Western Science vs. Eastern Wisdom Some of the most extensive medical research on yoga therapy is being done in India, but will it ever be accepted by Western medicine? by Timothy McCall, MD It’s 7:30 a.m. at the Vivekananda ashram—Prashanti Kuteeram, or “the abode of  peace”—situated on a bucolic hundred acres outside the city of… [Read More]