Can yoga worsen glaucoma?

Patients with glaucoma are encouraged to exercise and lead healthy and active lifestyle, but should avoid activities that increase the eye pressure and damage the optic nerve. Push-ups and heavy weight lifting are not advisable, so is certain yoga postures in which the head is facing downward. Previous studies have investigated only headstand position which showed a remarkable two-fold increase in eye pressure. However, a new research carried out at New York Eye and Ear Infirmary, Mount Sinai exposes the potential risk associated with various yoga positions involving head-down position. Twenty participants were divided into two groups, one with ten known glaucoma patients and the other with ten healthy patients with no eye disease. They were made to perform four different head-down yoga positions: standing forward bend, downward facing dog, plow, and legs up the wall. The eye pressures of people in both groups before, during, and after all four poses were measured.
Both normal and glaucoma study participants showed a rise in IOP that in all four yoga positions that occurred within one to two minutes of beginning the pose with the greatest increase of pressure occurring during downward facing dog. Although there was a little difference between the two groups, study authors encourage patients to use caution and also recommend further research into the effect of yoga on eye pressure.
Since elevated eye pressure is a known risk for the development and progression of nerve damage to the eye, even transient increase in eye pressure over long periods of time can potentially be harmful. All inverted head posture asanas such as Sirsasana, Sarvangasana, Chakrasana and Mastyasana are preferably avoided. Other yogic practices that may increase the intraocular pressure like Kapalabhati pranayama (breathing exercises) and vamana dhouti (gastric cleansing) are also to be avoided. If you have glaucoma or are at risk, discuss with your yoga instructor to allow for modifications of the yoga poses without compromising the health of your optic nerve.
- Dr Nilanjana Deb Joardar
Senior Consultant,
Retina & Glaucoma
Win Vision Eye Hospitals

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This release was published on openPR.