A soft spot for the East

The British television presenter and lifestyle coach Amanda Hamilton shares her views on health and nutrition.

Cometh January, cometh the gym membership as people the world over resolve to pound away the kilos on the treadmill, only to burn out a few weeks or months down the line. What if I were to say that going soft on exercise is a good idea? Going soft doesn't mean wafting around the gym exercising the jaw with idle chitchat rather than focusing on the job at hand. Soft exercising describes a tradition of eastern-influenced exercises that offer more than just fat burning as a benefit. And given that January is a stressful month for many, what with all the credit card bills coming in, it could be just the thing you are looking for.

In the West, many people have the notion that exercise is associated with panting, sweating, strain or injury, whereas in the East, exercise has traditionally been regarded as something one does for therapeutic purposes. It still plays a key role in most of the traditional healing systems. We have all heard of yoga, the ultimate eastern import - celebrities such as Madonna have made sure of that. A quick Google search for yoga classes in the UAE gave me a list as long as my ashtanga-honed arm.

Jonathan Satin, the manager of Triyoga in London, gives classes in which gym bunnies will commonly find themselves doing the downward dog next to the likes of Gwyneth Paltrow. According to Satin, in the US the yoga market is increasing by 25 per cent year on year. That's a lot of Lycra. Behind the media hype of these ancient traditions lies scientific reasoning. The body's vital functions are controlled by the autonomic nervous system, which has two branches: the parasympathetic branch and the sympathetic branch.

Also known as the action circuit responsible for the fight and flight response, the sympathetic nervous system is switched on by physical exertion, intense activity, hard work, excitement, sensory stimulation or emotional turmoil. So while you are stepping on your StairMaster to the beat of Beyoncé's latest and taking in CNN at the same time, your body's entire supply of nervous energy is consumed in an active response, often burning up energy faster than it can be produced. The result of such neuro-active depletion over time can be a state of nervous exhaustion, feeling "burnt out".

The parasympathetic branch works in the background, managing the body's various internal systems. There is no magic switch between the two. Eastern traditions use deep, slow diaphragmatic breathing during exercise to let the body drop into this modality. During a yoga class, as your body shifts, the autonomic nervous system encourages the function of all the major organs by keeping the nerve and energy channels open, activating and stimulating lymph drainage, maintaining the flow of body fluids and toning the tissues.

It explains the phenomenon of the "yoga high", a lightness of being that extends to all contours and cavities of the body, despite the sweat of a full hour's exercise. However, if it is more toning of the biceps you are looking for than toning of the tissues, you are out of luck. The fundamental difference between yoga or other soft exercises such as Qigong (pronounced chee gong) and regular gym workouts is that the latter are designed to develop muscle, producing larger quantities of lactic acid in the muscle fibres and causing fatigue.

During a yoga practice, the production of lactic acid slowly reduces, and whatever is produced is neutralised by the increased oxygen that is taken in during the accompanying breathing. In other words, don't expect to get buff or bulk up through yoga alone. Some of the most advanced yogis I met during my training in India looked like human noodles. In my humble opinion, the answer to the fitness conundrum is a blend of East and West. It matters not that Eastern traditions such as yoga and Qigong were developed thousands of years ago. If you look at the underlying science, they seem more relevant than ever.

Combine them with workouts where you truly "feel the burn" and many a bulging body and burnt-out mind will come into line, sharpish.