Iyengar Yoga is the most popular form of yoga in the US: it can be practised by anybody no matter what their physical or mental ability. It emphasizes postures and breathing that promote strength, flexibility and balance.

While the goal of the postures is to create peace of mind and harmony and prepare for meditation, many people, particularly in the Western world, use Iyengar Yoga to improve physical and emotional fitness and wellbeing.

New research supports two of the claims surrounding Yoga’s health benefits: improving mood and decreasing lower back pain.

Low-back pain is the largest category for medical reimbursements in the US, accounting for 34 billion dollars of medical costs every year, said the researchers.

In this research, they recruited 90 people who had mild to moderate functional disability due to chronic lower back pain. The participants were randomly assigned to have either yoga instruction or conventional medical therapy.

The yoga group were taught by Iyengar certified instructors for 90 minutes twice a week for 24 weeks. The researchers continued to monitor the participants for 6 months after finishing yoga or medical therapy.

And the results were out revealing the following data:

* A significantly greater percentage of the yoga group members experienced significant reductions of lower back disability and pain intensity. They also reported clinical improvements half way through and at the end of treatment (12 and 24 weeks).
* The yoga group also showed significantly improved scores for depression.
* Both groups reduced medication by about roughly the same amount.

Good news, use yoga to enhance both physical and mental well-being. As for the conclusion of this:

“Yoga improves functional disability, pain intensity, and depression in adults with CLBP [chronic low-back pain].”