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Ask the Teacher is an advice column that connects Yoga Journal members directly with our team of expert yoga teachers. Every other week, we’ll answer an issue from our readers. Submit your questions here, or drop us a line at asktheteacher@yogajournal.com.
What yoga poses support healthy kidneys?
—Kathy in Lucas, TX
Yoga devotees often look to the practice as an answer for a lot of health concerns–and, the truth is, yoga can have a direct impact on specific conditions comparable to back pain, menopause symptoms, and hypertension. But sometimes, yoga’s effect is more subtle. That will be the case with yoga for kidney health.
Your kidneys, a pair of fist-sized organs positioned under the rib cage and on either side of the spine, control a lot of vital functions, including removing waste and fluid, producing red blood cells, helping regulate blood pressure, and filtering the blood.
“Healthy kidneys filter a couple of half cup of blood every minute, removing wastes and further water to make urine,” in accordance with the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. “Your kidneys also remove acid that’s produced by the cells of your body and maintain a healthy balance of water, salts, and minerals—comparable to sodium, calcium, phosphorus, and potassium—in your blood. Without this balance, nerves, muscles, and other tissues in your body may not work normally.”
The diagnosis of chronic kidney disease (CKD) means the kidneys cannot effectively filter waste. Kidney function can be affected by kidney stones, cysts, infections, or other injuries.
Yoga and kidney research
The impact of yoga on kidney health could also be indirect. Kinjal Patel, MD, a Los Angeles-based kidney specialist who can be a registered yoga teacher, says studies show yoga helps alleviate conditions that may result in kidney disease.
“So what are probably the most common risk aspects for [kidney diseases]? Diabetes, hypertension, obesity,” she says. “All those things we all know are impacted positively by having a yoga practice, or by working to develop yoga tools in your life.”
A study published within the International Journal of Yoga, supports this assertion. Researchers asked participants to practice yoga five days per week for six months. The regimen included asanas, pranayama, and stress-reduction exercises. The outcomes: The yoga group showed improved renal function and decreased need for dialysis. Their blood pressure was lower and so they reported a greater overall quality of life. The control group had higher blood pressure and lower kidney function.
One other study in Journal of Nephrology and Therapeutics cites studies that found a “strong association of oxidative stress, chronic inflammation and psychological stress with CKD.” Controlling physical and mental stress and inflammation can affect the treatment consequence in CKD.
More study is required on the long-term effects of yoga practice. But yoga’s positive effect on diabetes and hypertension—causes of kidney disease—suggest that it could have a positive impact on CKD, experts say.
Yoga for kidney health
Marcel van de Vis Heil, based in Amsterdam, is a yoga teacher and an acupuncturist. His experience with Traditional Chinese Medicine allows him to see kidneys as greater than organs. In TCM, they’re energy centers or meridians. Kidney energy will be drained by anxiety or stress, he says. That’s where yoga is available in.
Due to the kidneys’ location, asanas that help the back will even help the kidneys, van de Vis Heil says. He recommends forward bends to strengthen the muscles and connective tissue within the lower back and surrounding the kidneys. These poses also open energy meridians necessary to the kidneys. He says Yin Yoga, developed by his teacher Paul Grilley, could be especially helpful since the practice, which holds poses for no less than two minutes, allows for a deep stretch.
“I’d say a more passive forward bend… because that’s stretching the fascia within the lower mid-back, and that’s stretching the fascia in front of and behind the kidneys,” he explains. He also recommends twists in Yin Yoga, comparable to Twisted Deer, because they supply a passive stretch for the lower and mid back.
Advantages of a healthy lifestyle and assured attitude
Van de Vis Heil is adamant that yoga alone won’t guarantee healthy kidneys. A healthy lifestyle can be necessary.
“Yoga can actually do quite a lot of good things for the body. But especially for the kidneys, you could have to do more. If an individual doesn’t care for themselves…you may do quite a lot of yoga, but that probably doesn’t assist you,” he says.
Patel says patients’ adherence to their health-care regimen is vital. She says yoga promotes well-being and confidence—emotional advantages that contribute to raised patient compliance.
“It’s really stressful and emotionally taxing to have a diagnosis like chronic kidney disease,” she says. “If yoga even helps with ameliorating that, then that’s an abundance of excellent that we will’t do with the pep talk we give within the office.”
Afi Scruggs is a contract author based in suburban Cleveland.