Prostrate Health and How much Heat?

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tmparagon
Participant

May 13, 2014 at 3:51 am

Post count: 3

#2625

I have practiced Bikram yoga for over 10 years, first at studios and then on my own (have the classic red Bikram book). So I look forward to using your materials I just purchased to improve my yoga.

1. Which yoga poses do you recommend for men’s prostrate health? My doctor recently wanted to give me antibiotics for prostatitis, but I was concerned about side effects of medication. I prefer to try yoga first to see if that would work. I am 44 years old, 68″ in height and about 140 pounds, and considered otherwise healthy by my doctor.
2. I can’t get my home as hot as a yoga studio, obviously. Is there a certain brand and/or model of space heater that you recommend for home practice? I run my space heater a few feet away from my body to get the maximum heat possible during yoga. Also, I close all doors to the bedroom, and I have a mirrored closet that helps.
3. How important is the 105 degree thing anyway? In your opinion, what temperature gives this type of yoga the maximum benefit?

As a side note, I find this type of yoga is good for a Ballroom Dance Instructor like myself.

Gabrielle (The Hot Yoga Doctor)
Forum Owner

June 14, 2014 at 12:30 pm

Post count: 3048

#10953

Hi Tim

So, thank you so much for your kind words. Thanks for the review too. I really appreciate it.

To answer your questions:

1 >> I hope your condition has been improving with your continued practice. The bikram or hot yoga poses are great for creating holistic health in my opinion. This ‘claim’ seems to be supported anecdotally.

Disease or conditions seem to occur when there is an imbalance in one’s body. If one can create balance – with all systems working better or optimally – then conditions seem to resolve.

As such there are not really any particular poses that will work for prostate health. I would recommend attending the whole class and gauging your improvement.

2 >> It seems you are doing the right thing to heat your practice space. If you look in the main sections entitled “The Heat” or “Practising at Home or Travelling” you will find some recommendations listed. As I do not live in the US I may have access to different hardware to you.

3 >> I don’t think you need to have 105 degrees. That’s an arbitrary figure that somebody else came up with several years ago. It’s now legend that Bikram decided that temperature. What you want is a heat and humidity level that helps you feel hot and one in which you sweat a bit! Typically if you can get a temperature of about body temp along with humidity of 50-60% you will be very satisfied.

The great thing is this: If you want to have the perception of increased heat without heating very high, then raise the humidity. The lower the humidity, the higher you need to heat the room to feel the same feeling of heat. If you research the term ‘heat index’ here on this forum, you will find more details about it.

Excessively high heat has an adverse effect on the body. However slightly raised heat (of say 105 degrees) for 90 minutes several times per week can actually cause a chronic low grade condition of heat exhaustion. This is very common.

There are many issues that I won’t go into in depth here, but they involve the body’s difficulty in keeping the core temperature down, one of electrolyte consumption and of hydration. Elevate the heat unnecessarily highly and all of these things become involved. I haven’t discussed the way that the body tries to lose heat to stay at the right temperature but keeping the studio temperature at a sensible heat will allow all mechanisms to work well.

Hope that helps. Happy dancing!

Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂
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