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HEALTH
YOGA AS MEDICINE
By Hetal Nayak, MD
The daily choices we make in life can greatly impact our current
and future state of health. Yoga, in its many forms, can serve as a
simple guide to help create health-based habits by encouraging in-
dividuals to take greater responsibility for their own health and by
making more enlightened choices in everyday living.
In 2014, the United Nations adopted June 21— Summer Solstice
Day — as the ‘International Day of Yoga’ that is now adopted by
175 countries. This is the story of one physician and a lifetime
shaped by yoga.
When we moved to Floresville in July 2004 for my husband’s job,
I had no idea that the month prior was to be the last month of my
anesthesia practice. I decided to stay home with our 2-year-old for
a few months. The break extended and our second daughter was
born. She was diagnosed with TAPVR (Total anomalous pulmonary
venous return) when she was 5-month-old and needed an urgent
corrective open-heart surgery.
I was diagnosed with pelvic floor prolapse at the same time. I
could not walk or stand for a long time as this would cause tremen-
dous fatigue and heaviness in the pelvic floor. Resisting vaginal hys- program is planned for physicians and healthcare personnel on Sat-
terectomy at age 32, I felt the need to improve my core strength
through other mechanisms.
That was my introduction to yoga. Simple practice of yoga, be-
sides strengthening my core, brought a tremendous change in my
personality. Introduction to the text ‘Yoga Sutra’ gave a deeper un-
derstanding of the philosophy within it. Now, at age 43, and with a
PhD in yoga, I feel stronger than I have ever felt.
With the physical practice of yoga your body awareness changes
as increased awareness brings mindfulness and mindfulness leads to
40 San Antonio Medicine • June 2017
making healthy choices in the food you eat, the TV shows you
watch, the company you keep, the activities you choose and your
sleeping habits. It brings about a complete transformation of your
way of life.
It also brings positive changes in the people around you. My hus-
band, a cardiologist, now practices yoga regularly and recommends
the same to his patients.
The byproducts of this practice are that my bones on the X-ray
look healthier and younger than ever. I can eat to my heart’s content
and not worry about gaining weight and my HDL has doubled. My
LDL has reduced to half and this year I was able to climb the moun-
tains in Colorado, a steep hike for 1.6 miles, to 14,000 feet elevation
in less than an hour.
It is now my passion to pass on the knowledge of yoga to the peo-
ple of this city and make San Antonio a healthy city through yogic
lifestyle.
In conjunction with the third annual ‘I Do Yoga Day,’ a targeted
urday, June 17, 2017. Titled ‘Yoga as Lifestyle Medicine,’ the session
will feature Dr. Sat Bir S. Khalsa, PhD, assistant professor of medi-
cine at Harvard Medical School, as the keynote speaker. San Anto-
nio’s Dr. Venkat Srinivasan will also speak on a healthy lifestyle.
In conclusion, according to the World Health Organization, by
2020, two-thirds of all diseases will be lifestyle-based. Chronic dis-
ease is responsible for up to 80 percent of all healthcare expenditures.
Yet most health care professionals treat chronic disease the same way
they treat communicable disease — with pills and injections. Let’s
begin the dialogue about a healthy San Antonio.