NoahR's Current Event

Noah Reddy

Yoga: downward dog increases eye pressure, risks for glaucoma patient

My current event is about a certain yoga position that increases your eye pressure which is a risk for people that have Glaucoma. Yoga is a very popular form of exercising, but a certain position called the downward dog can increase your eye pressure. This yoga position puts people with Glaucoma at risk because when their eye pressure increases, they can damage their optical nerve which worsens their vision. Dr. Robert Ritch and his team were the people that conducted this experiment. They asked people that didn’t have Glaucoma to do multiple yoga positions. They found that when they did the downward dog their eye pressure increased. This will affect thousands of people with Glaucoma. Dr. Robert Ritch recommends that people with Glaucoma should talk to their yoga instructors about staying away from the downward dog. Dr Robert Ritch and his team have not done anything other than that statement. This will take place when or where you are doing yoga. “Glaucoma patients should share with their yoga instructors their disease to allow for modifications during the practice of yoga." Says study author Jessica Jasien. In my article Dr. Robert Ritch and his team do an experiment where they tested a group of people without any eye diseases for their eye pressure. Then they had those people do the downward dog pose and hold it for two minutes. When they tested their eye pressure again they found out that it had increased. But Dr. Robert Ritch said that the difference in eye pressure was not very big.

This article is very important because it can let people that have Glaucoma know that the downward dog position can worsen their vision. I feel like things like this should be tested and looked into more often so people with diseases and other things aren’t at an unknown risk.

Works Cited

Ellis, Marie. “Yoga: downward dog increases eye pressure, risks for glaucoma patient.” Medical News Today. N.p., 8 Jan. 2016. Web. 17 Jan. 2016. <http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/304863.php>.