I don’t think I see much – if anything – about yoga among the targets of the skeptical patrol. But there’s a lot of bullshit in it isn’t there? Plus a lot of…what to call it…not full-on bullshit but a kind of hinting at more than is really there. Isn’t there?
I’m wondering because I was idly reading some bit of fluff in a neighborhood throwaway this afternoon and there was an “article” on the wonders of yoga written by someone who runs a yoga place (so what possible motivation could she have to pretend it’s more magical and health-giving than it really is?), which along with apparently reasonable claims about exercise was “it detoxes your organs.” I beg your pardon? No it doesn’t. “Detoxing your organs” isn’t a thing, and if you see a claim that treats it as a thing you know there’s bullshit going on.
Okay, Google is my friend, so here we go. 5 Yoga Poses for Detoxification.
Note from Joy: I am thrilled to share another post with you from my friend and amazing yoga instructor Michelle from sol glo. As you may have noticed, we launched our Spring 2013 online program: Eat Clean Body Lean: 21 Days to a Joyous New You – Register Today!
These poses she has graciously put together for you will stimulate the passage of toxins! Of course the calming and centering aspect of yoga is essential for detoxification as well. Your body will not efficiently eliminate any toxins if you are in sympathetic nervous system mode, better known as “fight or flight”. Enjoy these poses from Michelle — she’s awesome!
That looks like a move from the reasonable to the not so much. Stress is bad for the body, so to the extent that yoga is good at relieving stress (which I think it is) it’s good for the body and makes it feel better. But is that “detox”?
“Happy New Year” often goes hand-in-hand with “Detox” for most people especially after indulging over the Holidays.
Yoga can help us release toxins that have been built up in the body and need help finding their way out, enhancing all of your efforts in your cleanse. Through various twists, folds, inversions, and sweating, Yoga will clean out toxins, lower stress hormones, send more oxygen to our cells, and increase circulation to carry nutrients to the cells and toxins away to be eliminated.
“Yoga will clean out toxins”? That’s just gibberish, right? Decreasing stress will lower the production of adrenalin, as I understand it, but that doesn’t mean it “cleans it” out.
You know what else is a good anti-stress thing to do? Go to a big semi-wild park on the bluffs above Puget Sound with a bursting-with-energy dog on a cold cloudy damp day, and have fun. All those little chores you have to do become very manageable.