Overcoming Medical Challenges of Space Travel by Smart Yoga
Extended spaceflight missions expose astronauts to long periods of microgravity environments, which causes declines in the health of bone and muscle.
Because astronauts don't need as much muscle and bone in space, their body stops maintaining them — their muscles atrophy (even their heart muscles get smaller because the heart does not have to pump as hard in microgravity) and their bones deteriorate.
Astronauts who spend many months on a space mission can lose, on average, 1 to 2 percent of bone mass each month. As a result, back problems are a common affliction for astronauts, with around 70% suffering from discomfort during their first few days in space, half experiencing severe spine pain on return and slipped discs being four times more likely than for the rest of the population. In some astronauts back pain is quite severe and lasts the whole mission. In others it’s just for a few days.
Astronauts always have to be attached to the machines — to keep from floating away! Even with this much exercise, astronauts still experience muscle and bone loss and have to build their muscles when they are back home.
“If you could do yoga in space that might really help the astronauts,” said Alan Hargens, professor of orthopaedic surgery at the University of California, San Diego.
However, lack of gravity limits astronauts in practicing yoga in space. A lot of yoga depends on the effects of gravity, like downward dog, where a stretch through the hamstring, calf muscles, back of the neck and shoulders are possible because of gravity. When you remove that, you may not have the same benefit.
To solve these issues we came up with the idea of a “Fit-Bit for the Body” or a “Smart Yoga Suit”
The Smart Yoga Suit need to help with all three:Yogic postures, Breathing exercises and Mudras
