Usatine Richard - Yoga Rx: a step-by-step program to promote health, wellness, and healing for common ailments

The doctor of the future will give no medicine,
but will interest his patient in the care of the human frame,
in diet and in the cause and prevention of disease.

Thomas A. Edison

Y oga has dramatically changed both our lives. We wrote this book because we wanted to help you restore your health, relieve your pain, and feel better through Yoga therapy. As a Yoga therapist and a medical doctor, we have different backgrounds and lead very diverse lives. Yet both of us have experienced such powerful effects from Yoga that we have committed ourselves to sharing this extraordinary healing tool with others. We believe Yoga is one of the most effective ways to treat your body and mind simultaneously, reducing stress and increasing flexibility, muscle strength, concentration, and a general sense of well-being. We want to spread the news that Yoga is not only effective for overall health, it can also be used in a targeted manner, with specially designed postures and routines, to manage and even cure specific physical disorders.

As part of his medical practice, Dr. Richard Usatine teaches the basics of Yoga to patients suffering from ailments as varied as back pain, anxiety, and asthma. He refers many patients to Yoga therapy for healing of their painful and injured bodies. Dr. Larry Payne is a Yoga teacher and therapist working each week with hundreds of people, in classes and in one-on-one therapy sessions, to improve their health.

A few words about our backgrounds before we met will help you understand how we both became so passionate about Yoga.

RICHARD'S STORY

I took my first Yoga class when I was in college and was wary because I thought I'd be spending a lot of time sitting in the lotus position, a popular image back in the 1970s. I was relieved to find that the postures of Yoga are many and variedand they feel great. I saw how Yoga could help me increase my flexibility and learn to relax both my mind and my body. Since then, I have used Yoga intermittently with other physical activities, including swimming, cycling, squash, and tennis.

After medical school, I completed my family medicine residency at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) and then practiced full-time at the Venice Family Clinic. From the beginning, I took a holistic approach to treating patients. I listened to their stories, made house calls, and developed strong relationships with the patients and their communities. Meanwhile, the medical students and residents I was training at the clinic learned the value of caring for the whole person, taking into account their physical, mental, and emotional needs.

In 1989, I returned to UCLA to co-direct the family medicine training program for interns and residents. Influenced by holistic ideas in the works of Bernie Siegel, Joan Borysenko, and John Sarno, I began to teach mindbody medicine to residents. The idea was to get young doctors to promote an overall healthy lifestyle to their patients. Meanwhile, furthering my study of Yoga gave me an opportunity to learn more about the mindbody connection and the value of Yoga in my own life. One instance of this was when I was able to use Yoga to heal a skiing injury to my knee. I began referring my own patients to Yoga for various conditions, both physical and stress related, and I constantly received positive feedback on Yoga's effects.