When I decided to feature this article, I was curious about the opinions people hold about yoga. I started right at my workplace, where most people described yoga as "an Indian thing" that involves gentle, low-impact exercises for leisure. I mentioned that regular yoga could help alleviate chronic conditions such as stress, depression, high blood pressure, diabetes, cancer, and more, but many of my colleagues, including medical professionals, challenged this idea and asked me to explain the logic behind it.
Yoga is a mind-body approach to self-healing that involves practicing various postures, breathing exercises, and meditation. It fosters unity among different dimensions of the self—such as the physical body, intellect, and spirit—promoting healing from various ailments, including stress, depression, chronic pain, and better blood sugar control. [1]
Regular yoga can help restore and relax the body's systems by incorporating various poses, deep and prolonged inhalations, breath-holding, and slow exhalation. At the same time, the individual focuses on the present through meditation. This entire process relaxes the body by shifting the nervous activation from sympathetic to parasympathetic stimulation [2]. Sympathetic stimulation prepares the body to respond to stressors such as fear and embarrassment, while parasympathetic stimulation slows down bodily processes, allowing them to occur peacefully and in a relaxed state [3].
The parasympathetic response is calming and restorative; it lowers heart rate, decreases blood pressure, and slows respiration. The relaxation effect of parasympathetic stimulation heightens self-awareness, boosts confidence and effectiveness, enhances optimism over pessimism, and encourages us to make exciting plans. It empowers us to step out of the fray and visualize life in a new way. [2]
Regular Yoga is self-empowering, enhances autonomy and enables the learner to embrace an active role towards healing which comes from within rather than from an outside form. It also enables the learner to adopt a positive mindset for faster liberation from stress, fatigue, depression, better sleep, release of tension, blood sugar fluctuations control, relief from chronic muscle and joint pains and other benefits.[1]
1. Explaining the therapeutic effect of Yoga and its ability to increase quality of life- PubMed. By Catherine Woidyard. Address:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3193654/. Viewed on: 19/06/2015.
2. 38 beefits of Yoga|Yoga benefits- Yoga journal. By Timothy Mccall, M.D|Aug 28, 2007. Address:http://www.yogajournal.com/article/health/count-yoga-38-ways-yoga-keeps-fit/. Viewed on: 20/06/2015.
3. The Nervous System|Functions of Autonomic Nervous System| Ross and Wilson Anatomy and Physiology in health and illness. By Anne Waugh & Allison Grant.10th edition, 2006. Page 173.
4. 5-Surprising Yoga benefits you don't know. By Alycia Lim|yahoo Newsroom|Friday, June 19, 2015. Address:https://sg.news.yahoo.com/5-surprising-yoga-benefits-you-didn-t-know-095855592.html.
5. Effectiveness of Yoga on hypertension: systemic review and meta-analysis- NIH, by Marshall Hagins, Rebecca States and Kim Innes. Address: http:/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/pmc/PMC3679769/ Viewed on: 20/06/2015.
6. Yoga for improving sleep quality and quality of life for older adults- PubMed- ncbi. 2014 May-June; 20(3):37-46. By Halpern J., Cohen M., Kennedy G., Reece J., Cahan C., Baharav A. Address: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24755569.
7. The Masculoskeletal System|exercise and bone| Ross and Wilson Anatomy and Physiology in health and illness. By Anne Waugh & Allison Grant.10th edition, 2006. Page 387.
8. Osteoarthritis- wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Address:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osteoarthritis
