Personally, this "eastern" vs "western" dichotomy has been a source of irritation for me. "Eastern medicine", "western medicine" etc.
I know people just use it in everyday usage, but it goes deeper than that.
The thing is, there are those ideas which work and those that don't. You have to reason your way through them and you ought to substantiate your reasoning with evidence. It doesn't really matter whether those ideas originate(d) in the east or the west.
In the sense that, there are lots of people from the east who have contributed immensely to "western" medicine and I see people from the west doing "eastern" things all the time. I just wish we could do away with this dichotomy when not necessary. Even in social and political terms, it wreaks havoc, but that's another thing.
You have to think of it as lines of evolution of ideas.
The "eastern" style philosophy and medicine has had hundreds or thousands of years to develop. The "western" style of medicine is based purely on science, facts, and evidence.
Given that the world hasn't really had a medium for collective thought and analysis until the age of the internet, it's no surprise that there is currently a dichotomy; I would say you won't see a balanced blending of ideas until another 50-100 years from now.
There was a TED talk recently that I watched, where the speaker mentioned the two different approaches to wellness, both in mind and in body.
Our current approach to medicine is really focused on stopping something bad from happening, versus focusing on building up the good which also has some degree of preventative effects on the health of a patient.
In other words, you can become extremely healthy via exercise, proper diet, and proper mental stimuli. Instead of focusing on "stopping something bad" from happening, you're focusing on boosting the good. This is the true balance that society in general needs to aim for.
A more clear example: say we have a large obese person, and the doctor tells them "quit drinking soda, it's bad for you". That obese person cuts out the soda, but then their body craves that same sugary fatness, so they turn to other sources of calories to keep their body happy with the overflow of calories. Now let's say you take the other approach: Encourage the person to exercise as much as is reasonable to keep them burning calories, which has a number of positive side effects. They are now boosting the "good", instead of just not doing the "bad". The true approach is to use both methods: tell the patient to lower soda intake but also to exercise at the same time, to create a balance.
This is really what preventative care is about. Boosting the "good", while cutting behavior that leads to "bad". Performing Yoga, meditation, Tai Chi, etc., are all boosting the "good", in many ways that have been proven via university studies. Some of the good effects go beyond strengthening muscle tissue and flexibility; for example the increased bloodflow to the brain acting, in a way, as a "smart drug" by simply providing more nutrients and oxygen and bloodflow to the brain cells that need it.
Likewise meditation (and prayer, which has roughly the same effect when studied via scanning tech such as MRI), has an actual positive influence.
Here is one such study:
http://www.sfgate.com/health/article/Stanford-studies-monks-meditation-compassion-3689748.php
Is Yoga positive? Absolutely.
Is it going to cure AIDS or make you into some kind of super human? Obviously not.