Yoga For Atrial Fibrillation

Atrial fibrillation, also known as A-fib is the most common cause for hospitalization among patients who have heart rhythm disorders. Although there are many risk factors for atrial fibrillation, the two most common contributing factors are age and stress. Not only does stress cause atrial fibrillation, atrial fibrillation causes stress. Respiratory problems, drug and alcohol use, chronic inflammation, endocrine disorders, inadequate circulation to the atria, and blood clotting factors all contribute to A-fib, but stress and atrial fibrillation perpetuate each other. The longer someone has atrial fibrillation, the greater the cumulative risk of stroke, so it is important to reduce stress.

What About Atrial Fibrillation Makes People "Stress Out"?

There are certain symptoms of A-fib that are almost universally stressful. A common complaint is palpitations, the feeling that your heart is about to jump out of your chest. A-fib can cause presyncope, a feeling that you are about to pass out, even though you don't, or syncope, losing consciousness, even when walking, talking, working, or driving. Atrial fibrillation can result in a feeling of fatigue combined with an inability to sleep, and the loss of quality of life, the ability to enjoy family life, to engage in recreational activities, to get out and meet people, and to work and earn enough money to pay bills, can be depressing. It's not unusual for people who have A-fib to develop a sense of doom. And when they also develop extremely low blood pressure, decompensated congestive heart failure (difficulty breathing and swollen limbs), and/or uncontrolled angina (causing a sensation of tightness, squeezing, or pressure pain in the chest, neck, and arms), immediate medical treatment can be essential to saving life.

Yoga for Reducing the Stress of Atrial Fibrillation

As a form of atrial fibrillation treatment To break the downward cycle of stress and atrial fibrillation, doctors in Sweden and Denmark have been experimenting with a form of yoga developed specifically for people who have atrial fibrillation. Yoga is an Indian spiritual and exercise practice consisting of meditation (dhyana), breathing (pranayama), and slow physical exercises often referred to as poses (asanas). The practice of yoga regulates both the sympathetic (fight or flight) and parasympathetic (internal regulatory) nervous systems, and relieves A-fib, that is, if the people who have A-fib can do the asanas.

If you have a pacemaker, you're on half a dozen heart drugs, you weigh 300 pounds (140 kilos or so), and you have severe arthritis, you aren't going to be able to keep up with the class at the typical yoga studio. You aren't even going to be able to get to the studio. To provide a helpful form of exercise for people who are sick, Göran Boll and doctors and nurses at the Karolinska Institute and Sophiahemmet University in Sweden have created MediYoga.

READ Ten Surprising Health Benefits of Yoga for Men

The only prerequisite for participating in MediYoga is the ability to breathe on your own. Even if you are bedridden, you can do MediYoga. In this system, everyone can exercise, and the effects of just twelve weeks of practice can create a remarkable change in the severity of atrial fibrillation.

What MediYoga Is And How It Works To Relieve A-Fib

MediYoga was developed from kundalini yoga. In this "yoga of awareness," physical movement is just one of several tools for self-improvement, along with meditation, breathing, and chanting. Kundalini differs from hatha yoga in that it places less emphasis on the asanas (movements) and pranayama (breathing). MediYoga is developed specifically for people who have cardiovascular disease. Each session begins with five to ten minutes of deep breathing followed by just three movements (with attention to breathing during the movement), and then another ten minutes of meditation and ten minutes of relaxation. Usually the sessions are done seated in a chair, although they can be done standing up or even lying down. The entire session takes about an hour. MediYoga may be done as little as once a week, although patients are encouraged to use DVDs for at-home sessions.

In a study at Danderyd Hospital in Stockholm, researchers compared 40 A-fib patients who participated in yoga once a week for 12 weeks with 40 A-fib patients who did not. At the end of 12 weeks, the patients who did yoga at least once weekly:

• Had heart rate on average 9 beats per minute lower than the control group.
• Had systolic blood pressure on average 9 mm Hg lower than the control group.
• Had diastolic blood pressure on average 9 mm Hg lower than the control group.
• Scored higher on psychological tests measuring quality of life than they did at the beginning of the program. It turned out that more patients who had strokes or transient ischemic attacks were assigned to the yoga group than to the control group. However, at the end of 12 weeks, they were reporting the same quality of life, on average, as the group of patients who had not had as many strokes or transient ischemic attacks.

The patients in the yoga group also used fewer beta blockers and ACE inhibitors at the end of the study, although none of them went off medications completely.

The importance of lowering blood pressure is that inadequately controlled blood pressure contributes to attacks of A-fib. When blood pressure levels go down, incidents of atrial fibrillation become less frequent. When this can be done without medication, one also avoids the side effects of the medication. Lowering blood pressure can also decrease the need for blood thinners (anticoagulants), which often pose significant restrictions on diet and recreational activities and also cause serious side effects. Reducing heart rates reduces the risk of tachycardiomyopathy, the deterioration of the heart muscle during prolonged fast heart rate. If the study had been continued, researchers predict that yoga would have been found to prevent hospitalizations and death.

READ Yoga and Spiritual Awareness

Göran Boll (the developer of MediYoga) likes to say that yoga frees you from the drama your mind creates and allows you to be your true self, your healthy self. MediYoga is a way of taking control over a difficult and frustrating condition without taking still more medications. MediYoga instruction videos are now available in English and MediYoga instructors are being trained in the US. For more information about how to learn this simple technique at home, see the links after this article.