Jonathan RosenthalNeurologist, NCS · Neurologist at NuVasive Clinical Services

Dr. Sat Bir Khalsa, PhD - Neuroscience and Yoga Conference 2025

12 Mar 2025 · 1 min

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1:27

In this brief narrative, Dr. Sat Bir Khalsa recounts his personal journey with yoga that began as an undergraduate seeking a contemplative practice at the University of Toronto. He joined a credit‑bearing campus yoga class, which sparked a steady practice. In 1973 he moved into a Toronto ashram, adopting a full‑time yoga lifestyle. By 1975 his longstanding interest in science resurfaced, leading him to set a personal goal of researching yoga despite a lack of mentors and virtually no existing research infrastructure. The turning point arrived in 2001 when the U.S. National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) began funding yoga studies; Dr. Khalsa secured a five‑year career award, marking the official start of his formal yoga research program.

Chapters

My interest in yoga began when I was an undergraduate student, and I was interested at that point in time in engaging in a contemplative practice. And I happened to be at the University of Toronto in Canada. And as I was planning on trying to identify a yoga class somewhere, I heard that there was a yoga class on campus that was part of a course for credit. And so this sounded ideal and just the timing was just right. And so I attended that class and began a pretty much steady yoga practice. And in 1973, I moved into the ashram in Toronto and began essentially a yoga lifestyle as a member of the ashram. But a few years later, my interest in science, which I had always had, came back and I set the goal for myself of conducting research on yoga. And that was in 1975. There was nobody to study under at that point. The opportunities for research in yoga were fairly nonexistent at that point. And then in 2001, our federal agency, the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, started funding real grants. And yoga was one of the areas that they were funding. And I put in a grant application, and I was fortunate enough to get a 5-year career award. So I began my yoga research really in 2001.