Restless Legs Syndrome

DEFINITION:Usually occurring when a person is lying down, restless leg syndrome causes a buzzing, vibrating sensation in one or occasionally both legs, that almost irresistibly causes the person to move his or her leg. At that point the buzzing stops, only to begin again in 10 – 15 seconds. It may go on for hours. It is also known as Willis-Ekbom Disease. BENEFICIAL POSES AND EXPLANATION:The yoga cure is to recognize that the desire to move the leg(s), like all desires, comes in strengthening waves for a time, then levels off, and then declines in waves until it is gone. Training oneself to gradually withstand more and more the almost irresistible urge to move ones legs to relieve the buzzing may take a few days: just lying there. At first just resist the first wave, then, when you’ve mastered that, resist the first two. In a matter of minutes, hours or days you will be able to remain still and observe the entire growth and decline in intensity until the waves are gone. Simply abstaining from moving the legs, which is not easy, but does not hurt, one will watch the waves grow and grow, then level off, and then resolve. Just watching them motionlessly for one or two times is sufficient to cure the syndrome for years. Should it return, simply repeat this process. The pathway for restless leg syndrome seems to involve the same neurological circuitry as the placebo effect. There may be an explanation of why this treatment works that makes use of this fact. Please see the video below. Evidence: 1. For the pathway: Ondo WG, Hossain MM, Gordon MF, Reess J.Predictors of placebo response in restless legs syndrome studies. Neurology. 2013 Jul 9;81(2):193-4. doi: 10.1212/WNL.0b013e31829a33bd. Epub 2013 Jun 7. 2. For the cure: Loren Fishman. “Healing Yoga.” W.W. Norton, 2015. Pp.213-215.