Yoga as Medicine

From arthritis, asthma and heart disease to insomnia, infertility and weight loss, this groundbreaking book of yoga therapy provides the postures, breathing techniques and meditation exercises to relieve stress, prevent illness, and heal you when you’re sick. With a wealth of practical information, a comprehensive review of the scientific research, and in-depth coverage of injury prevention and contraindications to safe practice, this book is an indispensable guide for the millions who now do yoga or would like to learn, as well as for yoga teachers, body workers, doctors, nurses, and other health care professionals.

Yoga as Medicine features twenty chapters devoted to the work of individual master teachers such as Patricia Walden, John Friend, Gary Kraftsow, Nischala Joy Devi, and Rodney Yee, and shows how these experts have applied their knowledge of this revered ancient practice to heal people in need. Dr. Timothy McCall, Yoga Journal’s medical editor, outlines the yogic approach to each condition and shows how to safely integrate yoga into both Western medicine and alternative health care to create a prescription for health and healing whose time has come.

Illustrated with more than 300 photos, drawings and charts throughout. 568 pages, $21. Yoga as Medicine is now in its 11th printing (another 12,000 copies!). It has been translated into Italian, Spanish, and Russian, and versions in Japanese and other languages are in the works.

Click here to read the Introduction to Yoga as Medicine.

Click here to see the Table of Contents, including a description of each of the chapters, and biographies of the teachers whose work is featured in Yoga as Medicine, including Patricia Walden, John Friend, Gary Kraftsow, Rodney Yee, Shanti Shanti Kaur Khalsa, and Nischala Joy Devi.

Click here to read an excerpt from Yoga as Medicine’s chapter on Carpal Tunnel Syndrome that appeared in the August/September 2007 issue of Yoga Journal. Please note, to see the photos, you’ll need to either look at the book or the print edition of the magazine.

Click here to find links to the teachers and other experts featured in Yoga as Medicine.

Click these links to buy Yoga as Medicine from Amazon.com, Powell’s Book, or directly from Random House (the Random House site also allows you to browse and search the book). To find a local independent bookstore, click here.

“I knew this was a keeper when I caught my mother devouring it during a recent visit home. Usually resistant to my yogic prescriptions, she must have picked up the book after I had inadvertently left it on her desk. When I commented on her reading it, she said, “I’m finally starting to believe that yoga can help everyone.” Aimed to be accessible to everyone, Yoga as Medicine succeeds in laying out how the ancient practices of yoga can be applied today – complementing, rather than competing with, conventional medicine. Author Timothy McCall, MD, practicing yogi and Western-trained physician, is just the man to deliver these no-nonsense goods. Twenty chapters showcase how leading yoga instructors such as Rodney Yee, John Friend, and Richard Freeman work with students who have conditions such as infertility, insomnia, obesity, and cancer. This encyclopedic tome is sure to become a well-used staple on every yogi’s bookshelf. Readable, unpretentiously smart, and thorough, here’s a book that may even turn your mother on to yoga.”

Sara Avant Stover, Fit Yoga, October 2007, p. 42