He built his fortune on health claims related to the 105°F heat in his practice studios—a protocol he contrived in the 1970s to mimic, he said, the temperatures in his native Calcutta, omitting for his Western customers the fact that in India, yoga is never practiced at midday, nor under the sun. As it turns out, the most researched “benefit” of the artificial heat applied in Bikram Yoga suggests that it brings participants dangerously close to heatstroke. A 2015 study by the American Council on Exercise found that participants were clocking internal temperatures of up to 104°F.
