Is the use of yoga and meditation therapy effective in improving one's long term well being?

This study evaluates the effectiveness of yoga and meditation therapy in improving long term well being. It presents arguments supporting the positive impact of yoga therapy on cognitive well being, as well as arguments highlighting the potential risks and limitations. The study concludes that yoga therapy has more positive benefits than threats towards human lives.

Running head: Is the use of yoga and meditation therapy effective in improving one's long term
well being?
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IS THE USE OF YOGA AND MEDITATION THERAPY EFFECTIVE IN IMPROVING ONE'S LONG
TERM WELL BEING?

Is the use of yoga and meditation therapy effective in improving one's long term well being?
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The term Yoga and meditation is often closely interlinked as a therapeutic procedure.
The term yoga refers to the union of the body and the mind. Yoga can be defined as a series of
holistic practices that emphasise connection of mind and body. It also involves breathing,
meditation and postures. With an insurgence of clinical and surgical measures for the purpose
of enhancing life, there can be a debate in relevance to significance of therapy. Hence, the
focus of this study is to evaluate the quality of therapy to enhance one’s cognitive well-being. In
order to provide reliable data, I have presented secondary findings from meta-studies of an
article that either support or rejects the notion of yoga therapy on health.
Presentation Of Argument That Use Of Yoga And Meditation Therapy Is Effective In Improving
One's Long Term Well Being
A significant randomised study has been implemented by Sharma, Robbins, Wagner,
and Colgrove (2015) that focused on therapeutic influence of yoga on Parkinson’s disease. The
study analyzed 13 patients who were diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in either stage 1 or
stage 2. The patients were randomized in two groups, one of which was subjected to regular
yoga therapy (n = 8) and the other being a control group (n = 5). These patients from the yoga
group were introduced to twice-a-week yoga classes for 12 consecutive weeks. The participants
from both groups were then assayed at the baseline, and then after 6 and 12 weeks,
respectively through Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale, clinical and physiological
measures. The article concludes that yoga and meditation therapy can introduce progressive
results in long-term healing of Parkinson’s disease (Sharma et al., 2015).
Another study mediated by Bressington et al. (2019) involved 50 participants that were
randomized to yoga therapy intervention (n=23). This intervention included 8 sessions for 4

Is the use of yoga and meditation therapy effective in improving one's long term well being?
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weeks. The control group (n=27) included participants that continued their usual care program.
After the completion of the intervention, the researchers measured the cognitive mental health
condition with the help of Depression-Anxiety-Stress Scale and 12-item at baseline survey. Post-
intervention and 3 months of follow up has aided the researchers to understand the
implications. Patients who undertook yoga lessons showed statistically larger reduction in
improvements regarding depression and mental health. The overall quality of life of these
patients improved in comparison to control group. Clinical scores indicated favorable
satisfaction levels within interventions. Qualitative interviews can initiate effective and
modifiable aspects.
The main argument that is given by the researchers can represented the following
forms.
Premise 1: Yoga therapy can improve physical and physiological aspects in patients suffering
from Parkinson’s disease (Sharma et al. 2015).
Premise 2: The patients who participated in the yoga therapy reported positive symptoms, such
as reduction in tremors (Bressington et al.2019)
Premise 3: Signs of improvements are noted in thee depression scores, body weight and forced
expiratory volumes of the patients who attended yoga session (Wang & Hagins, 2016).
Premise 4: Yoga therapy tends to bring considerable improvement with long term application.
Premise 5: Yoga therapy is feasible for modified interventions to reduce depression in patients
(Bressington et al. 2019).
Conclusion:
Yoga therapy in this study has appeared to enhance non-motor and physiological factors

Is the use of yoga and meditation therapy effective in improving one's long term well being?
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of patients suffering from Parkinson's disease. It is essential to enunciate conservative
interventions for treating clinical outcomes and physiological functions that contribute to
quality of life for viable interventions in Parkinson's disease.
This study presents the reasoning of yoga therapy in strengthened points. Exercise
intervention of Yoga therapy can prove to have beneficial impacts on the cognitive well being of
a human being. Several yoga and meditation forms display improvement in case of Parkinson's.
This include health status, quality of life, fall risk, and motor performance. Yoga can reduce
depression and fatigue for patients suffering from chronic conditions. This movement enhances
respiratory pressure that create immediate impact on blood pressure lowering. Sharma et al.
(2015) reported positive effect of yoga therapy on motor functions.
Presentation Of Argument That Use Of Yoga And Meditation Therapy Is Ineffective In
Improving One's Long Term Well Being
Yoga therapy in the present time involves considerations in the communal and social
levels. A majority of yoga therapists do not follow a need-based therapy and often impose their
decisions on the patients (Wells, 2017). In case of people suffering from social anxiety, these
events can be stressful for the persons. The exploding popularity of yoga has caused
widespread awareness among the millennial class Americans. The number of people in yoga
therapy has grown from 4 million to 25 million in the last decade. However, the lowering in
population suffering from ailments have not gone down in accordance to the previous data. The
study of Broad (2012) analyses multiple studied to determine the factors that converged to
increase risks in yoga therapy. The main findings of the study are given below.
Premise 1: Demographic shift among practitioners of yoga can typically create cultural

Is the use of yoga and meditation therapy effective in improving one's long term well being?
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conflicts among ethnicities (Broad, 2012).
Premise 2: Lack of flexibility can cause the patients to develop sore or strained muscles
and cardiac arrests (Boddu, Patel & Shahrrava, 2016).
Premise 3: It causes undue stress in people, especially the ones who fail to implement
the complicated postures (Wells, 2017).
This can be supported by a large number of clinical evidence to support that yoga may
provide multiple risks. The researchers considered multiple yoga postures to label them as
inherently risky for aged population. Yoga injuries can pertain to complications in the neural,
skeletal or muscular systems. In some cases, prolonged yoga therapy can give rise to
unresponsive nerves. Boddu, Patel & Shahrrava (2016) comment this occurs when peripheral
sciatic branch that connects the spine, buttocks and legs are under stress. Multiple yoga poses
can deprived oxygen to various nerves thus killing it nerve.
Evaluation of Arguments:
The use of both scholarly and non-scholarly sources have supplied a wide plethora of
evidential observation. This can be in consideration for the conclusions derived from systematic
analysis of multiple studies. The scholarly sources have presented their data with randomised ,
pilot study (Bressington et al. 2019). The non-scholarly source has been cited from New York
Times, an influential newspaper that undertook the analysis of several researches done by
authors and scholars. In comparison to this, claims of scholarly journals have been supported
through panel or partisan sources. Here, as I see, the scholarly sources have shown capability of
contradiction when the areas of impact of yoga therapy in cognitive viewpoint is discussed. On
one hand, it can be seen that yoga performs in an exemplary manner in relevance to improving

Is the use of yoga and meditation therapy effective in improving one's long term well being?
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quality of life in patients suffering from physical and mental complications. On the other hand,
it is seen that yoga can impose significant risks in terms of emotional stress and flexibility of the
body.
Conclusion:
Based on the research studies and the newspaper articles that we have analysed, it can
be said yoga has been an enlightening pathway to reach cognitive well-being. Although, a
number of debates exist among scholars about safety of yoga therapy, the preliminary rationale
has provided insightful perspectives. The study further segregates the evidence that is utilised
to garner a deductive conclusion. In future, I would probably prefer to choose more scholarly
articles as sources in comparison to news articles. This is because, the former is usually biased
towards a specific answer. Overall, it can be concluded that yoga therapy has more positive
benefits that the threats towards human lives.

Is the use of yoga and meditation therapy effective in improving one's long term well being?
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References
Sharma, N. K., Robbins, K., Wagner, K., & Colgrove, Y. M. (2015). A randomized controlled pilot
study of the therapeutic effects of yoga in people with Parkinson's disease. International
journal of yoga, 8(1), 74.
Bressington, D., Mui, J., Yu, C., Leung, S. F., Cheung, K., Wu, C. S. T., ... & Chien, W. T. (2019).
Feasibility of a group-based Laughter Yoga intervention as an adjunctive treatment for
residual symptoms of depression, anxiety and stress in people with depression. Journal
of affective disorders, 8(28) 48-51.
Broad, W. J. (2012). How yoga can wreck your body. The New York Times, 5.
Boddu, P., Patel, S., & Shahrrava, A. (2016). Sudden cardiac arrest from heat stroke: hidden
dangers of hot yoga. The American journal of medicine, 129(8), e129-e130.
Wells, M. J. (2017). Proselytizing a Disenchanted Religion to Medical Students: On why
secularized yoga and mindfulness should not be required in medical education (Doctoral
dissertation, The Ohio State University).
Wang, D., & Hagins, M. (2016). Perceived benefits of yoga among urban school students: A
qualitative analysis. Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine, 2(2) 206-
219.