Role Of Yoga In Health And Fitness

Athokpam Rightkumari Devi *

'Dance for Peace' a fusion of different performing Art Forms including Yoga Exercises and Martial Arts

MEANING

The word 'yoga' means "to join or Yoke together". It brings the body and mind together to become a harmonious experience. Yoga is a method of learning that aims at balancing "Mind, Body and Spirit". Yoga is a practice with historical origins in ancient Indian philosophy.

THE BASICS OF YOGA

The philosophy and practice in all forms of YOGA is embedded in the following eight principles

1. Yama Control of the Mind
2. Niyama Follow rules
3. Asana Postures
4. Pranayama Controlled Breathing
5. Pratyahara Complete relaxation
6. Dharana Attain consciousness of the body
7. Dhyana Concentration and Awareness
8. Samadhi State of Absolute Awareness

• Health yoga: is the path of physical fitness or yoga of postures.
• Bhakti Yoga: is the path of the heart or the yoga of devotion.
• Dhyana Yoga:is the path of meditation and contemplation
• Jnana Yoga : is the path of learning and knowledge
• Karma Yoga: is the path of action or selfless service.
• Nada Yoga: is the Yoga of inner sound. The sound of the Universe.
• Yoga Nidra: is the yoga to achieve perfect sleep

• Yoga views the human body as a composite of mind, body and spirit.
• " Health is the state of complete physical, mental, spiritual and social wellbeing and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity" (WHO)

• PHYSICAL WELLBEING: Yoga Improves blood circulation and over all organ functioning
• MENTAL WELLBEING: Bring down stress, enhances power of relaxation & stamina and bestows greater power of concentration and self control
• SPIRITUAL WELLBEING: Regulation and transformation of blood chemistry through proper synthesization of neuroendocrinal secretions, dispassionate internal vibrations leads one to attain the power to control the mind and to become free from the effect of external forces compelling one to lose to equanimity.
• SOCIAL WELLBEING: Yoga practitioner become cheerful, enjoys talking to people, shares problems with friends and can realize that there are other also who are sailing in same boat, so that one can easily mix-up in group by happier nature.

1. Physical
2. Psychological and
3. Spiritual

• Flexibility: Yoga helps the body to become more flexible, bringing greater range of motion to muscles and joints, flexibility in hamstrings, back, shoulders, and hips.
• Strength: Many yoga poses support the weight of own body in new ways, including balancing on one leg (such as in Tree Pose) or supporting with arms increases strength.
• Better Breathing: Most of us breathe very shallowly into the lungs and don't give much thought to how we breathe. Yoga breathing exercises, called Pranayama, focus the attention on the breath and improve lung capacity and posture, and harmonize body and mind which benefits the entire body. Certain types of breath can also help clear the nasal passages and even calm the central nervous system, which has both physical and mental benefits.
• Disease Eliminator: Yoga has the power to prevent and eliminate various chronic health conditions in women similar to men.
• Heart Disease: With less stress and blood pressure chances of cardiovascular diseases are prevented. Increasing blood circulation and fat burning results in lowering cholesterol.
• Diabetes: Yoga stimulates insulin production and reduces glucose to prevent diabetes.
• Gastrointestinal: Yoga improves the gastrointestinal functions in women effectively.
• Metabolism: Yoga helps women to stay healthy by balancing metabolism results by controlling hunger and weight.
• Pain Prevention: Increased flexibility and strength can help prevent the various instances of back pain, chronic pain, neck pain can be lessened with yoga practice.
• Blood circulation: Yoga postures can help improve circulation and eliminate toxic waste substances from the body.

• Mental Calmness: Yoga asana practice is intensely physical. Concentrating so intently on what body is doing has the effect of bringing calmness to the mind.
• Stress Reduction: Physical activity is good for relieving stress, and this is particularly true of yoga. Yoga provides a much-needed break from stressors, as well as helping put things into perspective. Yoga controls breathing, which reduces anxiety. It also clears all the negative feelings and thoughts from mind leading to reduction of depression.
• Concentration: Yoga increases concentration and motivation in quick time. This is why women from all aspects of life practice yoga since better concentration can result in better focus on life and profession.
• Memory: Yoga stimulates better blood circulation especially to the brain, which reduces stress and improves concentration leading to better memory.
• Body Awareness: Doing yoga will give an increased awareness of own body. It increase level of comfort in own body. This can lead to improved posture and greater self-confidence.

• Inner Connection: Yoga can help to create a bond, a relation between body and mind apart from all other benefits.
• Inner Peace: Yoga is the only method known to us for better and quicker inner peace. The inner peace generated increases and improves our capability in making effective decisions even at serious circumstances.
• Purpose of Life: Yoga is a simple exercise method that has numerous benefits, psychologically and physically apart from allowing us to attain inner. It helps to find the purpose of life and secrets to healthy longer life.

• Surya Namaskar is a complete body exercise. It keeps all internal organs, stomach, intestines, pancreas, spleen, heart and lungs, healthy and strong. Also muscles of external body parts, chest, shoulders, hands, thighs, legs becomes healthy and strong.
• It makes spine and waist flexible by removing disorders. It improves blood circulation in the body which removes skin diseases.
• These are the best twelve steps of surya namaskar yoga positions in sequence to burn calories, weight loss and complete health, fitness.

• Scientific studies have shown that the practice of Yoga has curative abilities and can prevent disease by promoting energy and health. That is why more and more professionals have started using Yoga techniques in patients with different mental and physical symptoms, such as psycho-somatic stresses and different diseases.
• Our bodies have a tendency to build up and accumulate poisons like uric acid and calcium crystals, just to mention a few. The accumulation of these poisons manifests in diseases and makes our bodies stiff.
• A regular Yoga practice can cleanse the tissues through muscle stretching and massaging of the internal organs and brings the waste back into circulation so that the lungs, intestines, kidneys, and skin are able to remove toxins in a natural way.

• Yoga asana is recommended for the treatment of both high and low blood pressure.
• Yoga provides exercise to all the organs of the body so as to regulate the overall metabolism rate in the body.
• There are several causes of high blood pressure like increased stress, anger and anxiety or other mental and cognitive disorders.
• Yoga helps to free one's mind from the negative thoughts and provides complete rest to the mind and the body. This increases the metabolism of the body and brings the mind at rest. Excessive thinking about something also increases the pressure with which the blood flows in various organs of the body.

• There is no specific yoga for beautiful skin. The practice of yoga helps the individual achieve a sense of balance and relaxation in life. Yoga works on physical and mental aspects of the individual. Thus yoga for strength also helps individual's live healthy lives that will show on the skin.
• The overall improvements in the body of an individual will lead to the improvement in the skin quality as the skin will be well nourished.
• The same applies to yoga for hair.
• This is simply because improved circulation of blood will nourish the hair follicles better.

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3. http://www.anandamarga.org/articles/yoga-health-secrets.htm
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