Yoga for Diabetes
Yoga for Diabetes
Yoga can improve strength, flexibility and balance, it can also help maintain your blood sugar level.
The two most popular yoga styles that you can explore for diabetes are Vinyasa yoga or Bikram yoga.
Vinyasa yoga is the yoga style commonly found at most gyms today. This technique combines yoga poses and breathing techniques.
Bikram yoga (also known as hot yoga) involves taking you through 26 poses in 90-minutes. Bikram yoga takes place in a heated room to accelerate sweating.
Regardless of which style of yoga you choose, certain asanas (postures) help balance the functioning of the endocrine system. According to Sabir Shaikh, a yoga practitioner, these asanas massage and tone the abdominal organs like pancreas and liver, stimulate the nervous and circulatory system which in turn helps in controlling diabetes.
About Postures
There are many postures that can help, you can find related videos on YouTube. Remember, start slow and initially hold poses for 5 seconds, then gradually overtime increase the hold time to 60 seconds. Don’t exert yourself, do it in a relaxed manner while focusing on your breathing.
Dr. Pradeep Gadge, Diabetologist recommends that besides medication:
“yogic asanas help you in harmonizing your body, breath and mind, thereby contributing to the overall health that further helps insulin in the body to be
used more effectively.”
So, if you are pre-diabetic or diabetic, consider adding yoga to your lifestyle. It might help control your blood sugar level and strengthen your pancreas.
The yoga asanas shown on the second page of the PDF help in improving and controlling blood sugar levels and also help in keeping a check on other health issues in body.
Resource Information:
Type: Article
Length: Short (< 5 minutes)
Topics: Caregiver Wellbeing/Self Care , Chronic Health Issues , Mental Health
Conditions: Diabetes
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