Sivananda Yoga

Swami Sivananda and the Divine Life Society

A biography published by the Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Centres and Ashrams on Google Arts & Culture says Swami Sivananda was born on September 8, 1887, in Tamil Nadu, became a medical doctor and worked among the poor in Malaysia for many years before giving up medicine to live as a renunciant. The account says he settled in Rishikesh in 1924, founded the Sivananda Ashram in 1932, the Divine Life Society in 1936 and the Yoga Vedanta Forest Academy in 1948, and died on July 14, 1963. It is an organizational biography written by the movement that bears his name, not an independent history.

Vishnudevananda and the Western centers

The International Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Centres say that Swami Vishnudevananda traveled to the West in 1957 on the instructions of Swami Sivananda and opened its first Western center, in Montreal, Canada, in 1959. The organization describes itself as a non-profit network of ashrams and centers in close to 35 locations and reports that nearly 50,000 teachers have been trained through its teacher training courses. Both figures come from the organization itself and were not checked against an independent count.

Place in modern postural yoga

A Wellcome Collection history of modern yoga lists Sivananda among a handful of transnational yoga systems centered on asana practice, and traces the Western power yoga and Jivamukti styles partly to practitioners of ashtanga and Sivananda yoga. A review of sun salutation history says the sequence was neither considered an asana nor part of traditional yoga, and that Swami Sivananda was among the figures who popularized it; the sequence is part of the warm-up in Sivananda classes today. Machipedia's Yoga Styles page places this system among postural styles.

How the name is used

In practice, Sivananda Yoga refers to the standardized teaching of the Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Centres, whose name signals that they present the physical practices within Vedanta, a school of Hindu philosophy. Their teacher training curriculum includes the Bhagavad Gita with Swami Sivananda's commentary, and the fifth of their five points is named for Vedanta and dhyana, the Sanskrit term for meditation. A German national survey of yoga practitioners listed Sivananda yoga as a style category alongside Ashtanga yoga and traditional Hatha yoga.

Sanskrit terms in the curriculum

The organization's pages use asana for postures, pranayama for breathing exercises, savasana for the relaxation pose, and dhyana for meditation. Its course description also names satsang, a daily gathering for chanting and talks, karma yoga, a period of service, and kriyas, which it lists among the subjects taught. Pranayama, Meditation and Hinduism have their own Machipedia pages, and Hatha Yoga covers the wider label under which some sources group postural systems of this kind.

The five points

The centers present the system through five points: exercise through postures (asana), breath control (pranayama), relaxation (savasana), a diet they describe as vegetarian, and positive thinking with meditation, tied to Vedanta and dhyana. An article published by the centers says Swami Vishnudevananda formulated the five principles after observing modern lifestyles, drawing on yoga teaching. The framework is a teaching device of the organization, and the sources reviewed do not show it as a separate classical text.

Class structure and the 12 basic postures

A Sivananda ashram in the Bahamas describes a class as pranayama, then warm-ups that include sun salutations, then the 12 basic asanas with relaxation between poses, then deep relaxation. The listed postures, in order, are headstand, shoulderstand, plough, fish, sitting forward bend, cobra, locust, bow, spinal twist, crow or peacock, standing forward bend and triangle. The page presents this as the organization's standard sequence and gives no instructions for performing the poses, which this page does not reproduce.

Teacher training

The organization describes its Teachers' Training Course as a four-week residential program held at its ashrams and centers. Its daily schedule includes satsangs, asana classes, lectures and an hour of karma yoga, and the curriculum covers the main yoga paths, the Bhagavad Gita, asana, pranayama, kriyas, meditation, anatomy, physiology, nutrition and teaching practice. The page states that graduates receive a certificate recognized by Yoga Alliance at the 200-hour standard for Registered Yoga Schools; that is the organization's own statement, and it was not checked against a Yoga Alliance register. Participants must follow ashram rules, including a vegetarian diet. No statutory training standard was sought for this page.

Physical and stress-related aims

The organization's page on the five points says the postures build flexibility, strength and concentration, that breathing techniques increase oxygen intake, calm the mind and boost vitality by directing prana, and that relaxation serves physical, mental and spiritual rest. These are statements by the teaching body about the intended purpose of the practices. They describe what practitioners hold, and they should not be read as findings from controlled research.

Spiritual and philosophical aims

The organization presents the fifth point as a way to cultivate an optimistic, peaceful mind through Vedantic philosophy and meditation. An article from the centers describes control of the mind through steadiness and concentration, and the teacher training curriculum includes the topics of karma and reincarnation. The sources reviewed describe these as aims within a Hindu philosophical framework, and they do not test them as outcomes.

Searches for Sivananda-specific studies

Searches of PubMed for the terms Sivananda yoga, Sivananda in titles and abstracts, a Sivananda yoga trial, and Sivananda lifestyle program found no randomized trial or systematic review of a Sivananda Yoga program. The records that mention the name were a review of sun salutations, two surveys of German yoga practitioners, an unrelated qualitative study at a leprosy rehabilitation home that carries the name, and two records from the 1950s that were not opened. Absence of trials means the system's reported effects are untested, not that they are absent.

Surveys of practitioners

A cross-sectional online survey of 1,702 yoga practitioners in Germany, 58.2 percent of them yoga teachers, found Sivananda yoga was the most commonly practiced style at 22.4 percent, ahead of traditional Hatha yoga and Ashtanga yoga. Most respondents rated their health as good to excellent, and 87.7 percent reported improved health since starting yoga. Because the survey was self-reported, cross-sectional and recruited through teacher networks, it shows associations in a self-selected group and does not show that the practice caused better health.

Context from hatha yoga reviews

A systematic review and meta-analysis of hatha yoga trials for mood and anxiety disorders, covering 18 studies through June 2018, found no significant effect on depression against treatment as usual or against active controls overall, and no effect on anxiety against active controls. Depression was lower than in psychoeducation control groups. The authors judged most studies low quality and the results heterogeneous. These trials did not test Sivananda Yoga as such, so the findings are context for postural yoga and are not evidence about this system.

Injury reports and inversions

In the German survey, 21.4 percent of yoga users reported at least one acute adverse effect and 10.2 percent a chronic one, mostly musculoskeletal. Hand, shoulder and head stands were linked to 29.4 percent of the acute effects, and practicing only by self-study without supervision was associated with higher risk. The overall rate was 0.60 injuries per 1,000 practice hours, and the rate for Sivananda yoga was 0.63. The authors noted that results may not generalize beyond a German, mostly female, highly educated sample.

A systematic review of 35 case reports and 2 case series covering 76 cases found musculoskeletal, nervous system and eye events. Headstand was involved in 10 cases and shoulderstand in 3, and most of these were eye events, mainly glaucoma-related. The authors advised beginners to be cautious with inversions, which may be contraindicated with a history or family history of glaucoma. Case reports cannot show how often events occur.

Beginners, pregnancy and medical conditions

The National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health advises beginners to avoid extreme practices such as headstands, shoulder stands and forceful breathing, and advises pregnant people, older adults and people with conditions such as lumbar spine disease, severe high blood pressure, balance problems or glaucoma to talk with a health care provider and instructor about modifying or avoiding some poses. It also advises against using yoga to delay seeing a provider about a medical problem. The Sivananda pages reviewed list the headstand and shoulderstand first in the standard sequence and showed no cautions.

Diet advice and course rules

The five points recommend a vegetarian diet, and the teacher training course requires one, along with bans on alcohol, tobacco, drugs and coffee, with students who do not comply asked to leave. A position paper of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics states that appropriately planned vegetarian diets, including vegan diets, are nutritionally adequate across life stages and that vegans need reliable sources of vitamin B-12. The paper addresses diets generally, not this organization's advice, and individual dietary needs are a matter for a clinician or dietitian.