Estimates suggest that Polycystic Ovary Syndrome [PCOS] affects 5 – 10 per cent of women of reproductive age. The symptoms of PCOS are any or all of the following: hair fall, irregular menstruation, acne, pimples, baldness, dandruff, miscarriage, facial hair, weight gain, high blood pressure and sugar imbalances due to insulin resistance. PCOS also increases the risk of heart attack, diabetes, stroke, anxiety disorder, depression and uterine cancer.

But every problem has an inherent solution. The good news is that a regulated and disciplined lifestyle can reverse this problem. “PCOS is growing like an epidemic due to faults in the lifestyle, especially, in young girls. It can be completely kept under control without any complications through yoga, right diet and a healthy lifestyle,” says Dr Sudeshna Ray, Mumbai-based gynaecologist.

PCOS increases the risk of heart attack, diabetes, stroke, anxiety disorder, depression and uterine cancer

Let’s look at how yoga can help to manage PCOS

To treat PCOS, it is important to focus on the postures which help direct oxygen rich blood to the reproductive organs. Hence, all the asanas which are meant to stretch and expand the lower back and hips will fall in this category.

Prasarita Padotanasana

[wide legged forward bend]: Stand with your feet wide apart [4 – 5ft], bend forward to place your palms on the floor, inhale, raise your head up to get a concave back, bend your elbows, exhale and place your crown in between your palms. Maintain the posture with normal breathing for a while. Here’s a video to help you do the pose correctly.

Benefits of Prasarita Padotanasana:

• Stimulates your liver, kidneys, calves, hips, groin, knees and spine.
• Calms the mind and releases muscular stiffness.

Upavista Konasana

Sit with your legs stretched in front of you and spread as far apart as possible. Start bending forward as per your comfort, while exhaling. Your aim should be to finally touch your head to the floor and your hands to your toes.

Watch the video below of Upavista Konasana

Benefits of Upavista Konasana:

• Stretches and strengthens your hips, lower spine, and muscles from the upper chest to the pelvis.
• Helps the pelvic floor get increased blood supply.
• Eases the pain of sciatica, regularises menstrual flow, stimulates ovaries, and stretches hamstrings.
• Recommended during pregnancy as well.

Baddhakonasana

Sit with your feet in Namaste position [soles touching] for 1 – 2 minutes. Slowly bend forward and get into a comfortable, relaxed position as shown in the picture. Watch this video on how to do Baddhakonasana

Benefits of Baddhakonasana:

• Helps direct blood flow to the abdomen and pelvis thereby stimulating the abdominal organs, ovaries, uterus, bladder and kidneys.
• Helps with sciatica, menstrual irregularity, high blood pressure, asthma, infertility, depression and fatigue.
• Recommended for pregnant woman.

Apart from the ones mentioned above, asanas like utthita trikonasana, utthita parsavakonasana, paschimottanasana and adhomukha svasana are also beneficial. Additionally, the practice of Surya Namaskar alone can bring tremendous benefits and help keep weight in check. Surya Namaskar is a series of 12 postures which stretches and flexes the complete spine, works on the arms and the legs and internal organs and glands.

According to some schools of thought, it is best to avoid inversion postures if you have PCOS.

the practice of suryanamaskar alone can bring tremendous benefits and help keep weight in check

Managing the stress that comes with PCOS

Stress can be a cause of PCOS and also a result of it. Activating your parasympathetic nervous system with restorative postures, correct breathing and pranayama can help manage stress. Pranayamas promote deep relaxation and hormonal balance bringing adrenal and cortisol levels within control.

Ujjayi Pranayama [victory breathing]

Performed at the basic level, one needs to sit upright, and inhale and exhale while constricting the throat. You will hear ‘sa’ sound during inhalation and exhalation.

Benefits of Ujjayi Pranayama:

• Expands your lungs fully so that you utilise your lung capacity to the optimum.
• Generates vital energy, tones and soothes the nervous system, and balances high BP.

Nadi Shodhan Kriya [alternate nostril breathing]

This is popularly known as anulom vilom. You block your right nostril with your right thumb, inhale from the left nostril, then block left nostril with right ring and little finger, release right nostril and exhale. Then inhale from the right nostril, block right nostril again with right thumb, release left nostril and exhale from left nostril. This is one cycle.

Benefits of Nadi Shodhan Kriya:

A few cycles of anulom vilom where you are breathing mindfully can calm your mind, increase oxygen level in the body, relieve fatigue, strain and weakness and also lower high blood pressure.

Mudras for PCOS

These are hand gestures that can be held while doing pranayamas or at any other times during the day.

1. Gyan Mudra or Jnana Mudra is the mudra of wisdom. This mudra is performed by joining together the tips of the thumb and the index finger. Performing this mudra helps to increase will power. It also balances the function of the various glands and stabilises hormonal disorders. It is beneficial in sleeping disorders. Do this for 15 minutes daily.

2. Yoni Mudra is performed by joining the thumbs and the index fingers of both hands and interlocking the other fingers. Thumbs will face the ceiling and index fingers will be facing the floor. This mudra is specially designed for woman and helps to relieve PMS, periods irregularity and excess bleeding during periods. Do this for 30 minutes followed by 5 – 10 minutes of Pran Mudra.

3. Pran Mudra is performed by joining the tips of little fingers and ring fingers with the tips of the thumb. It helps reduce tension, anger and irritability. Also relieves skin rashes, improves eyesight and removes impurities from blood. Do this for 10 minutes daily.

Follow the whole series whenever convenient during the day.

Lifestyle management is the key to PCOS management. Hence, look at each aspect of your life, manage it positively and you will be relieved of this health concern.

If you have any further questions about how to manage PCOS with yoga, I will be happy to answer them for you. You may post your questions on ‘Ask Shammi’ segment on www.shammisyogalaya.com.

A version of this article was first published in the February 2016 issue of Complete Wellbeing.

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Why women need their own guide

Family health still rests primarily in a woman’s hands. Far more women than men care for the family’s well-being: they prepare the food they eat, make appointments with doctors, nurse them through illnesses and read about healthcare. So it’s important that women’s health is taken care of properly.

It’s important that a woman’s health should not be considered and treated exactly the same as a man’s. This means taking into account the less obvious ways in which women differ from men, ways that are not visible on the surface but which can make a big difference to the way women are affected by illness.

It is up to you to learn about how your own body functions, to recognise how it [your body] responds to different stresses and circumstances, and to know how best to treat it in the hope of being rewarded by a long and healthy life. A vital part of this is to understand something of the many ways in which women differ from men—differences that go far beyond body shape and the ability to have babies—and how very varied women themselves are, so that what may be right for your sister-in-law or your neighbour may not be right for you.

Women’s health and wellbeing

Wellbeing goes beyond health. You can be technically healthy and yet not feel great. Someone afflicted with, for example, migraine, menstrual cramps, chronic fatigue syndrome, general aches and pains, irritable bowel syndrome, frequent coughs and colds, insomnia, depression or panic attacks will probably show no, or very little, variation from the norm in physical health checks such as blood tests. Many women have perfectly normal periods and show no hormonal irregularities, yet they cannot conceive naturally. A medical examination can reveal so little of such suffering.

Treating the disease rather than the person can be of particular disbenefit to women. To give just one example: steroids are commonly prescribed to sufferers of rheumatoid arthritits or MS. But men and women react to them very differently. A woman will find she gains weight and her face puffs up; she suffers from fluid retention and often has problems with her periods; she is likely to have trouble sleeping and have terrible mood swings or become aggressive. Men are much less likely to have any such troubling side-effects. Further problems that afflict women, such as excess body hair, hormonal weight gain, hair loss and PMS, are often misunderstood, misconstrued or dismissed as ‘vanity matters’.

Artificial hormones, antibiotics, painkillers and other regularly prescribed drugs can have horrendous side-effects.

An additional, major contributor to women’s ill-health is one that is mostly overlooked or underestimated: the stress brought on by the conflicting demands of modern life.

A change in emphasis

It is my firm belief, based on years of experience that the pattern and strains of modern life have altered the way a woman feels, looks and behaves. In traditional families women reign the affairs of the family and were called ‘housewives’ as they worked at home. The power they held was real and their pre-eminence in matters such as child-rearing, family health, domestic spending and, in wealthier homes, staff training and discipline was undisputed. However, in a money-based economy, wealth equals power and a healthy balance of duties and responsibilities can easily become distorted in favour of whoever holds the purse strings. Women discovered they had to work harder than their male counterparts to ‘prove their equality’.

Working women with family often found the larger part of household chores and of maintaining the ‘family glue’ still fell to them, testing their energy levels to the limit; they would juggle job and family commitments and wrestle with guilt when one detracted from the other. Women who chose not to follow a career or paid employment found they lost status, and became defensive about their choice or guilty about not contributing to the family finances.

When body and psyche are put under strains like this, it obviously reflects on general health but also rebounds on women in perhaps an unfair way—on their womanhood itself. Stress hormones [such as adrenalin] are akin in nature to male hormones, and an increase in male-style hormones is one of the most unnatural things that can happen to a woman. Many conditions on the increase today—including polycystic ovary syndrome, infertility and some forms of obesity—stem from this shift in hormonal balance that stress induces.

Listening to nature

A woman’s body is perhaps more attuned to nature than a man’s. One of the main reasons for this is that the effects of hormonal cycles are more prominent. It has frequently been noted that hormonal-based problems respond better to natural treatments than when tackled with strong medicines—fertility treatments with medicines often fail while natural ones [herbs, relaxation, diet] are more successful. Many couples, having given up trying for or having adopted a child, subsequently have their own, when the anxiety of not conceiving has gone. And heavy periods, menstrual cramps and pain, endometriosis, polycystic ovary syndrome, amenorrhoea and PMS, usually treated by hormones, often come back when the medicines are stopped.

The difference between men and women

As I pick up the pen to write this, one thought comes straight to my mind—that this is a daring subject, practically taboo.

Most women in the developed world have been brought up, rightly, to see that they are the equal of men. This has led to a widespread, but wrong belief that they are the same as men. The societal distinctions between men and women in terms of rights and power have been man-made.

When intellect and mental capacity are compared, it is difficult to find any distinction between the two sexes. If anything, it is boys and men who seem to have the greater struggle and, even within the restrictions of purdah, Middle Eastern universities turn out more women graduates, with higher degrees than men.

So, if not intellectually, where do the differences lie, beyond the obvious physical ones, and how may these affect a woman’s health and wellbeing? Recognising the deep and very real differences is a step towards improvements for everyone, especially women.

Skeleto-muscular system

The body is built for the functions it carries out. Most people know that women’s hips are wider than men’s to make childbirth easier, but a woman’s body has a further refinement on this. Just before the baby is due, hormones in the placenta trigger a calcium loss that causes the relevant joints to ‘de-fuse’, helping the baby pass through without any hitch.

Female bones are also more prone generally to loss of calcium, however, leading to a greater prevalence of osteoporosis [brittle-bone disease], polymyalgia rheumatica [general body aches], cramps in the toes and legs, rheumatoid arthritis and fracture more easily and, if there are serious hormonal problems or a chronic disease such as diabetes, she will generally heal more slowly.

The muscular system develops according to the genetic structure of the body, developed over millions of years. Men therefore tend towards a V shape, with broad shoulders narrowing to the hips, whereas women are the opposite, with less emphasis on the shoulders and wider at the hips.

Women gymnasts, ice skaters and ballerinas are more flexible and graceful than their male counterparts because their structure allows them that freedom, but men have the edge in a performance that demands muscular strength. Unless specifically trained, women do not have powerful biceps, calves, pectorals, or abdominal or shoulder muscles. The muscle bulk-building hormones in the body are by nature similar to androgens or male hormones, and in excess cause the female body to change for the worse.

Blood

The key to all sorts of physical activity is oxygen, carried by blood to the muscles. Proportionate to their size and weight, women have fewer blood cells than men, and a lower volume of blood. It is also slightly thinner. [Menstruation is not a factor in this: menstrual blood is built up over the month in the lining of the womb and its loss has little consequence for the body’s general stamina or energy.] A higher proportion of blood, supplying a greater muscle bulk, is what gives men a natural advantage when it comes to power and speed.

Oxygen allows the conversion of glucose to carbon dioxide and water, and so a smaller supply of oxygen will lead more quickly to muscle cramps and fatigue. So, unless specifically developed, women’s muscles tire more quickly.

Digestive system and eating habits

A man’s digestive system [in full health] is inclined to be more robust than a woman’s as it has evolved to support harder physical work [so it produces more bile, for instance, to cope with greater amounts of food].

Women are more prone to reflect psychological problems in their eating patterns. Eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia are so much more common among women that they are sometimes wrongly believed to be exclusively a female problem. Stress and bodily changes are also more likely to trigger an alteration in dietary habits: a craving for sweets is common premenstrually, for example, and the cravings of pregnant women can include oddities such as clay or chalk.

Hormones

A major influence on mood, and therefore outlook on life, is hormones. Both men and women have hormones, of course—after all, they are the deciding factor in whether we are male or female even before we are born—but the hormonal changes in women are more prominent and so the cycles of moods are more noticeable. Premenstrual tension, post-natal depression and behavioural changes in the early stages of pregnancy are some examples of the hormone-induced mood changes in women. Many of the problems and conditions explored from menopausal anxiety to weight control, have a hormonal element.

Once, women’s internal workings were considered a mystery and their minds unfathomable. Nowadays, all too often, the real differences between men and women are ignored or minimised. But equality doesn’t mean sameness. Somehow, we have to reach a true equality that allows for a woman’s feminine nature to be an integral part of her life and health care.

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