As a young child, Anil Jethmal knew of the many health benefits of practicing yoga.  Having lived both in India and in the US, he witnessed two very distinct attitudes towards it. 

In the New York of the 1970’s, those who did yoga were seen as eccentric.  In India, however, there had always existed a deep belief that yoga has key health benefits.  Those benefits included lowering stress, anxiety, fatigue and depression.  Not only that, many Indian doctors continue to claim that yoga reduces inflammation and joint pain, lowers blood pressure and cholesterol.  Others have touted its benefits in promoting sound sleep.

When Anil Jethmal told his young American classmates of those very benefits, he was greeted with skepticism and smirks.  They dismissed his claims as mysticism and nonsense since they had no basis in science.

Forty years later, American scientists are “discovering” the many benefits of yoga.  They “found” that yoga decreases the secretion of cortisol which, in turn, influences levels of serotonin, the hormone that stabilizes mood and feeling of well-being.  They discovered that practicing yoga promotes better sleep by naturally inducing the body to create melatonin.

And while they acknowledge many other scientifically measured benefits directly attributed to the practice of yoga, they are unable to determine the mechanism by which it occurs.

Anil Jethmal recalls that many years ago his parents explained to him their scientific theory behind the health benefits of yoga.  The human body, through tens of thousands of years of evolution, has learned how to heal itself.  When a disease invades the body, the human body will create an antibody, a cure, much quicker and more efficiently than any team of scientists and their billions of dollars in resources.  What Indians have discovered over their mature 5000 years of existence, they explained, is that practicing yoga works.  However, yoga, in itself, is not the cure.  Yoga merely helps to neutralize and therefore optimize the body, so that the body can best heal itself.

Forty years later, western science is “discovering” the very same thing.