Annals of Medicine

Yoga is a complementary and integrative health practice based in Vedic traditions dating back to 3000 BC. Currently, in developed countries, yoga is practiced as a broad remedy to manage health-related symptoms but this is only one aspect of yoga. The practices of yoga are multi-faceted and include physical postures (āsana), breathing practices (prāṇāyāma), concentration and meditation practices (dhārana, dhyāna), and ethical precepts for living a meaningful and virtuous life (yamas, niyamas). Burgeoning interest in yoga as a therapeutic intervention for a variety of health conditions has resulted in an exponential increase in research over the past few decades. A plethora of diseases and conditions have been evaluated in research-based yoga interventions, including musculoskeletal, neurological, immune, endocrine, cardiovascular, and psychological conditions, with many benefits reported. The field has expanded beyond efficacy research into: 1) elucidating the mechanisms of yoga, 2) translating the theory of yogic texts to contemporary conceptualizations of health, and 3) refined applications of yoga therapy.

Yoga offers a unique approach to health promotion, disease prevention, and treatment. As a complex and nuanced set of mind-body practices, yoga has garnered attention for its notable ability to simultaneously address multiple body systems through a dynamic and bidirectional process of top-down and bottom-up components to yield benefit in symptom reduction for many diseases. Main diagnostic entities, such as cancer, cardiovascular, respiratory, and metabolic diseases are rapidly increasing in prevalence in developed nations, in part due to aspects of a Western lifestyle such as substance use, stress, and inactivity. Although Western models of health emphasize stress reduction and recovery from disease or injury, yogic paradigms of health expand beyond these goals to include flourishing, resilience, and ultimately transformation of consciousness. Yoga and yoga therapy are increasingly being used as low-cost, accessible, and sustainable biobehavioural tools to counter these epidemics and to revitalize the mind-body-spirit trinity in a demanding world.

This special collection is a call for leading edge and innovative manuscripts that highlight current knowledge on the applications of yoga and yoga therapy, synthesize the wisdom of yogic theory with modern scientific models of health, and address special considerations in yoga research.

Sub-topics:

• Yoga and Rehabilitation:
  1. The evaluation of yoga or yoga therapy for addressing COVID-19, long COVID, chronic conditions (metabolic, neurological, musculoskeletal, immune deficiencies), peri-surgical populations, psychological conditions, and traumatic injury.
  2. The evaluation of āsana sequences for specific conditions, Iyengar Yoga protocols, and ayurvedic conceptualizations of health.
  3. The evaluation of yoga using quantitative measures of: neuroimaging (e.g., fMRI, MRI, CT), pain (e.g., quantitative sensory testing), physiological and autonomic function (e.g., skin conductance), sleep (e.g., actigraphy), and cardiac function (e.g., heart rate variability).
• Theoretical:
  1. Mechanisms of yoga.
  2. Integration of traditional wisdom (e.g., guṇa, doṣa, kleśa theory) with contemporary scientific frameworks of health.
• Special Considerations of Yoga Research:
  1. Virtual delivery of yoga (e.g., live-online interventions, recordings).
  2. Comparisons of virtual and in-person yoga.

Annals of Medicine accepts the following types of articles:

• Research Article (systematic/meta-analysis reviews and observational studies)
• Review Article
• Clinical Trials
• Protocols
• Case Series
• Commentary

Dr. Joel Katz is a Distinguished Research Professor of Psychology and a Canada Research Chair in Health Psychology at York University where he directs the Human Pain Mechanisms Lab.  He is also the Research Lead of the Transitional Pain Service in the Department of Anesthesia and Pain Management at the Toronto General Hospital where he and his students and colleagues are exploring risk factors and interventions, including yoga, to minimize and prevent chronic pain after surgery.  He has been involved in evaluating yoga interventions in various clinical populations, including people who have sustained a spinal cord injury and institutionalized patients with complex chronic health care needs.

https://pain.lab.yorku.ca/  |   https://www.transitionalpainservice.ca/

Dr. Kathryn Curtis is a clinical and health psychologist at the Comprehensive Integrated Pain Program, TWH, UHN, in Toronto, Canada. She completed her PhD in Clinical Psychology at York University and a post-doctoral fellowship at the Transitional Pain Service at the Toronto General Hospital. Her research interests include the evaluation of mind-body interventions, such as yoga and mindfulness for individuals experiencing chronic pain and mobility restrictions, as well as the intersection of Eastern philosophy with contemporary science. Dr. Curtis studied Vedic Studies at Vidya Institute for over a decade where she is the Program Coordinator of courses and workshops.

www.uhn.ca/Surgery/Clinics/Comprehensive_Integrated_Pain_program_CIPP

Disclosure Statement: Dr. Katz is the Editor-in-Chief of the Canadian Journal of Pain. Dr. Curtis has no conflict of interest to declare.

The deadline for submitting manuscripts is July 31st, 2023.

Annals of Medicine is an online, open access, international journal publishing across all areas of medicine and is part of our Elevate Series. This means that you will receive a concierge-level publishing experience, including dedicated support from our expert in-house Editorial team, with guaranteed response times of within 48 hours, an initial decision on whether your article will be peer reviewed within 5 working days, and a first decision on your research within an average of 22 working days.

All manuscripts submitted to this Article Collection will undergo a full peer-review; the Guest Advisor for this collection will not be handling the manuscripts (unless they are an Editorial Board member). Please review the journal scope and author submission instructions prior to submitting a manuscript.  

The deadline for submitting manuscripts is July 31st, 2023.

Instructions for AuthorsSubmit an Article