The heart is a very important part of your body and everyone knows that a healthy heart obviously means longer life. A well functioning heart pumps blood through the body and thus prevents strokes, heart attack etc. Coronary Heart/arterial Disease, CAD, simply means suffering of heart muscles due to short supply of oxygen. It happens when the arteries are constricted by plagues (semi solid emulsion of LDP and calcium). With this restricted passage for oxygen rich blood, heart needs to pump more, further straining itself. This can decrease blood circulation and cause fatigue and headaches in addition to heart conditions.

Your lifestyle and eating habits play a great role in shaping the health of your heart. High cholesterol and junk food are harmful for the heart. Daily exercises like talking a morning walk, flexing those muscles, playing some outdoor sport boosts your metabolism, maintains your heart  and gives your body more energy. In addition to all this yoga acts as a good method to combat coronary artery disease. A study published in the journal of The Association of Physicians of India (JAPI) based on CAD patients who practiced yoga showed that yoga reduced the serum total cholesterol levels by 23.3%, the disease had regressed in 43.7% and progression was arrested in another 46.5% of the patients. The concept of yoga for heart disease has been yaken advantage of for long. Of late it’s getting more publicity with proven results.

The types of yoga poses for treating heart disease are the Tree pose, Triangle Pose, Warrior Pose the mountain pose, and the lotus pose. These poses are intended to help your blood circulation and strengthen the heart muscle. Yoga has shown improvements in symptoms and conditions of CAD patients against the alleged poor performance of modern medicine. But it’s too early to say that yoga can completely cure heart disease. These exercises boost up your stamina providing you with surplus energy to do your daily activities and let the heart pump blood through the body without much effort or obstacles.  They also prevent muscles cramps by increasing their flexibility. Dr. Satish Sivasankaran recently conducted a study on the effects of yoga in preventing coronary artery disease and noticed significant reductions in hypertension, body mass and pulse rate. The CAD patients also showed improvements in the functioning of endothelial cells.

Today research and medical science are striving to find more ways in which yoga can treat heart problems. If you want to practice yoga and are a heart patient it’s important to know poses are right for your physical condition. It’s best to consult your cardiologist and yoga instructor on the same. Also keep in mind whether you intend to loose weight in the process, if so try out the yoga poses for weight lose along with these heart exercises. But remember to modify your lifestyle into a healthier one with eating habits and exercises that suit your body and heart. Next time you plan to take the lift bear in mind that your heart would prefer the stairs instead.