Sept. 9: Yoga helped a British cycling hero who suffers from cerebral palsy win gold in the London Paralympic Games yesterday.

“Yoga calmed me down — I was an angry child,” David Stone told The Telegraph after winning the Mixed T 1-2 road race riding a tricycle.

This is not the first time Stone, 31, has won a medal but he had taken time off after the Sydney Paralympics to come to terms with his cerebral palsy and spent time at the Munger School of Yoga, around 200km from Patna.

Cerebral palsy is “an umbrella term encompassing a group of non-contagious motor conditions that cause physical disability in development, chiefly in the various areas of body movement”.

Accounts by Stone and teachers at the Munger school suggest yoga not only calmed him down but also improved his ability to control his physical movements. Practitioners of conventional and alternative medicine believe that exercise, including yoga, can benefit people with cerebral palsy, but caution that rigorous scientific evidence is still required to support these claims.

At least one teacher at the Munger school recalled that Stone wobbled while he walked when he first came to the institute.

Two years later, in August 2004, Stone wrote in a school publication: “I have learnt postures to help induce deep physical relaxation and better balance. ... I’m now able to carry cups of hot liquids without spilling the contents and burning myself. This has led to an appreciation of both tea and coffee, and I’m also able to eat my meals more easily.”

Mahesh Kumar, a trained yoga teacher from the school briefed The Telegraph on the asanas and pranayamas Stone practised at the school. (See chart)

The regimen, sources in the school said, was prescribed keeping in mind the specific condition of Stone.

Other sources said the range of exercises appeared to have been designed to increase blood circulation, stimulate nerves, strengthen the lower back muscles and loosen the spinal vertebrae.

Bhramari, the exercise associated with the sound of the wasp or the humming bee, can help regulate the parasympathetic nervous system, which deals with involuntary actions and urges, a yoga practitioner not associated with the Munger school suggested.

A common thread appears to run through the exercises — the need to de-stress and calm down the practitioner. This holds particular significance for those suffering from cerebral palsy as the symptoms aggravate during stress.

Doctors accepted that yoga and other forms of exercise would be beneficial to people with cerebral palsy but added a rider.

“There are various ways through which yoga may indeed help, but unless scientific evidence is generated, such reports will remain anecdotal,” said Manjari Tripathi, a neurologist and an additional professor at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi.

She said studies in the past had suggested that yoga can modulate brain activity and autonomic activity that regulates the involuntary actions of the body. “But the use of yoga has not been tested in many diseases in any scientific manner,” she said.

In his interview with this newspaper, Stone, who won his third Paralympic gold medal after the Yorkshireman took the 24km road race, described the healing experience at the school at Ganga Darshan.

“I was about 21 when I first went there. It helped my body but it helped my mind as well. For a very long time, when I was 18-19-20, in fact ever since I was an angry child, I did not like my body,” Stone said.

In simple but moving terms, he explained: “The effect of going to Bihar was that, first, I became more accepting of my body, then I began to like my body.”

After the first visit, “I went back the following three years for three months each time. Then I returned again last year for another month, so in all I have spent 10 months there.”

The lifestyle at Munger is simple. “The ashram diet is simple Indian vegetarian food. Breakfast, lunch and dinner as well as tea are served in the kitchen area. Private cooking is strictly not permitted on campus,” according to the school.

Stone subscribes to its philosophy and confirmed: “Yes, I did work in the kitchens.”

All the inmates are supposed to go through “service yoga” at the school. Service yoga involves working as a kitchen hand, cleaning toilets, verandahs and rooms, and assisting the cooks by chopping vegetables.