The Science of Yoga: The Risks and the Rewards (48 page)

165
Pennsylvania jury awarded:
Ken Dilanian, “$1.9 Million Awarded in Sex Scandal,”
Philadelphia Inquirer
, September 6, 1997, p. B1.

165
confessed to multiple affairs:
Jon Auerbach, “Yoga Guru Who Taught Virtue of Celibacy Admits to Affairs,”
Boston Globe
, November 2, 1994, p. 22; William A. Davis, “A Guru’s Fall from Grace,”
Boston Globe
, December 22, 1994, p. 61; also see Anonymous, “History of Kripalu Center,” Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health, undated,
www.kripalu.org/about_us/491/
.

165
asked about rumors:
Clancy Martin, “The Overheated, Oversexed Cult of Bikram Choudhury,”
Details,
February 2011, p. 92.

166
When Abraham Morgentaler wrote:
Abraham Morgentaler,
Testosterone for Life: Recharge Your Vitality, Sex Drive, Muscle Mass & Overall Health!
(New York: McGraw-Hill, 2009).

166
Orgasm, Inc.:
Liz Canner, “Orgasm Inc.: The Strange Science of Female Pleasure,” orgasminc.org.

166
The formal diagnosis:
K. N. Udupa,
Stress and Its Management by Yoga
(Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 2000), p. vii.

167
improve a patient’s hormone profile:
Ibid., pp. 149–61.

167
studied a dozen young men:
J. D. Gode, R. H. Singh, R. M. Settiwar, et al., “Increased Urinary Excretion of Testosterone Following a Course of Yoga in Normal Young Volunteers,”
Indian Journal of Medical Sciences
, vol. 28, nos. 4–5 (April–May 1974), pp. 212–15.

168
“considerable improvement”:
Udupa,
Stress
, p. 154.

169
“vitality and sexual vigour”:
Swami Shankardevananda Saraswati, “Evaluating Yoga Research,”
Yoga Magazine
, June 1979,
www.yogamag.net/ar chives/1979/fjune79/evalre.shtml.

169
acts to improve mood:
K. Christiansen, “Behavioral Correlates of Testosterone,” in Eberhard Nieschlag and Hermann M. Behre, eds.,
Testosterone: Action, Deficiency, Substitution
, 3rd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 142–46.

169
shown to bolster attention:
Ibid., pp. 146–50.

169
important role in female arousal:
S. Bolour and G. Braunstein, “Testosterone Therapy in Women: A Review,”
International Journal of Impotence Research
, vol. 17 (2005), pp. 399–408.

169
studies have linked testosterone:
Christiansen, “Behavioral Correlates,” in Nieschlag and Behre,
Testosterone
, pp. 130–33.

170
closely studying the hormone:
Annalee Newitz, “The Coming Boom,”
Wired
, July 2005, pp. 106–10; Jane E. Brody, “A Libido Drug for Women?”
New York Times
, March 31, 2009, Section D, p. 7; Jane E. Brody, “A Dip in the Sex Drive, Tied to Menopause,”
New York Times
, March 31, 2009, Section D, p. 7.

170
scientists at the Hannover:
Schmidt et al., “Changes in Cardiovascular Risk Factors.”

170
vegetarianism alone reduces:
See, for instance, A. Raben, B. Kiens, E. A. Richter, et al., “Serum Sex Hormones and Endurance Performance After a Lacto-ovo Vegetarian and a Mixed Diet,”
Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise
, vol. 24, no. 11 (November 1992), pp. 1290–97.

171
“You won’t boost testosterone”:
Al Sears, “Manhood Banned!”
www.al searsmd.com/pdf/manhoodbanned.pdf.

171
“recharges your sex life”:
John Capouya,
Real Men Do Yoga
(Deerfield Beach, FL: Health Communications, 2003), pp. xv, 170.

171
A photo of Minvaleev:
Wikipedia, “Rinad Minvaleev,” en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rinad_Minvaleev.

171
study with a very narrow focus:
R. S. Minvaleev, A. D. Nozdrachev, V. V. Kiryanova, et al., “Postural Influences on the Hormone Level in Healthy Subjects: I. The Cobra Posture and Steroid Hormones,”
Human Physiology
, vol. 30, no. 4 (2004), pp. 452–56.

172
a holy book of Hatha:
Mallinson,
Gheranda
, pp. xiv–xvi.

172
“the physical fire”:
Ibid., p. 54.

172
the concluding step:
Ibid., p. 72.

172
“until the pubis”:
Iyengar,
Light on Yoga
, p. 107.

173
Runners, for instance:
McArdle et al.,
Exercise Physiology
, pp. 448, 450.

173
Dostálek fell for yoga:
Letter to author, Ctibor Dostálek, July 6, 2009.

173
named director: curriculum vitae
, Ctibor Dostálek, undated, p. 1.

174
held the practice in such esteem:
Swami Rama,
Path of Fire and Light: Volume 2, A Practical Companion to Volume 1
(Honesdale, PA: Himalayan Institute Press, 1988), pp. 175–76.

174
Doing Agni Sara properly:
See H. David Coulter,
Anatomy of Hatha Yoga: A Manual for Students, Teachers, and Practitioners
(Honesdale, PA: Body and Breath, 2001), pp. 188–200; the exercise has many variations, including the one that I describe.

174
Masters and Johnson reported:
William H. Masters and Virginia E. Johnson,
Human Sexual Response
(Boston: Little, Brown, 1966), pp. 295–98.

174
to a second brain:
Harriet Brown, “The Other Brain, the One with Butterflies, Also Deals with Many Woes,”
New York Times
, August 23, 2005, Section F, p. 5; Michael D. Gershon,
The Second Brain
(New York: HarperCollins, 1998).

174
envelops the viscera:
Mark F. Bear, Barry W. Connors, and Michael A. Paradiso,
Neuroscience
, 3rd ed. (Philadelphia: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, 2006), pp. 495–96.

175
bursts of brain excitation:
E. Roldán and C. Dostálek, “Description of an EEG Pattern Evoked in Central-Parietal Areas by the Hathayogic Exercise Agnisara,”
Activitas Nervosa Superior
, vol. 25, no. 4 (1983), pp. 241–46.

175
“paroxysmal”:
E. Roldán and C. Dostálek, “EEG Patterns Suggestive of Shifted Levels of Excitation Effected by Hathayogic Exercises,”
Activitas Nervosa Superior
, vol. 27, no. 2 (1985), pp. 81–88.

175
did so in the pages:
Ctibor Dostálek, “YOGA: A Returning Constituent of Medical Sciences,”
Yoga Mimansa
, vol. 24, no. 2 (July 1985), pp. 21–34.

176
A few scientists glimpsed:
See, for instance, N. N. Das and H. Gastaut, “Variations de l’activit
é
é
lectrique du cerveau, du coeur et des muscles au cours de la m
é
ditation et de l’extase yogique,”
Neurophysiologie Clinique
, supplement, vol. 6 (1957), pp. 211–19; M. A. Wenger and B. K. Bagchi, “Studies of Autonomic Functions in Practitioners of Yoga in India,”
Behavioral Science
, vol. 6 (1961), pp. 312–23.

176
did the most thorough study:
James C. Corby, Walton T. Roth, Vincent P. Zarcone, Jr., et al., “Psychophysiological Correlates of the Practice of Tantric Yoga Meditation,”
Archives of General Psychiatry
, vol. 35, no. 5 (1978), pp. 571–77.

176
important sign of emotional arousal:
The linkage between skin conductance and sexual arousal appears to be variable. See, for instance, Mary Lake Polan, John E. Desmond, Linda L. Banner, et al., “Female Sexual Arousal: A Behavioral Analysis,”
Fertility and Sterility
, vol. 80, no. 6 (December 2003), pp. 1480–87.

176
way to probe the unconscious:
L. Binswanger, “On the Psychogalvanic Phenomenon in Association Experiments,” in C. G. Jung,
Studies in Word Association
(New York: Russell and Russell, 1969), pp. 446–530.

177
equal to that of frenzied lovers:
Masters and Johnson,
Human Sexual Response
, pp. 34–35, 174, 278.

178
reported rates of more than forty breaths:
Ibid., pp. 34, 277–78.

178
Advanced students are encouraged:
Coulter,
Anatomy
, p. 119.

179
wraps around the brain stem:
Afifi and Bergman,
Functional Neuroanatomy
, pp. 280–96.

179
body made of two lobes:
Ibid., pp. 289–92.

179
Dutch scientists recently studied:
Guido A. van Wingen, Stas A. Zylicz, and Sara Pieters, et al., “Testosterone Increases Amygdala Reactivity in Middle-Aged Women to a Young Adulthood Level,”
Neuropsychopharmacology
, vol. 34 (2009), pp. 539–47.

179
repercussions on different parts:
Stefan Posse, Uwe Olthoff, Matthias Weckesser, et al., “Regional Dynamic Signal Changes During Controlled Hyperventilation Assessed with Blood Oxygen Level–Dependent Functional MR Imaging,”
American Journal of Neuroradiology
, vol. 18 (October 1997), pp. 1763–70; Janniko R. Georgiadis, Rudie Kortekaas, Rutger Kuipers et al., “Regional Cerebral Blood Flow Changes Associated with Clitorally Induced Orgasm in Healthy Women,”
European Journal of Neuroscience
, vol. 24 (2006), pp. 3305–16.

180
a theory of sex hyperventilation:
Torsten Passie, Uwe Hartmann, Udo Schneider, et al., “On the Function of Groaning and Hyperventilation During Sexual Intercourse: Intensification of Sexual Experience by Altering Brain Metabolism Through Hypocapnia,”
Medical Hypotheses
, vol. 60, no. 5 (May 2003), pp. 660–63.

180
Lori A. Brotto and other sex researchers:
For a profile, see Daniel Bergner, “Women Who Want to Want,”
New York Times Magazine
, November 29, 2009, Section MM, p. 42.

180
rise in the amplitude:
Lori A. Brotto and Boris B. Gorzalka, “Genital and Subjective Sexual Arousal in Postmenopausal Women: Influence of Labor-atory-Induced Hyperventilation,”
Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy
, vol. 28 (2002), pp. 39–53.

181
fast breathing could improve arousal:
Lori A. Brotto, Carolin Klein, and Boris B. Gorzalka, “Laboratory-Induced Hyperventilation Differentiates Female Sexual Arousal Disorder Subtypes,”
Archives of Sexual Behavior
, vol. 38, no. 4 (August 2009), pp. 463–75.

181
a routine of twenty-six poses:
Choudhury details the typical class in
Bikram Yoga.

181
muscular strain as an integral part:
Masters and Johnson,
Human Sexual Response
, pp. 294–300.