In to­day’s 24/7 world with dis­tress­ing news bom­bard­ing us, elec­tron­ic de­vices de­mand­ing our at­ten­tion, and an in­box full of emails that seem to need an im­me­di­ate re­ply, it’s no won­der stress lev­els are at an all-time high. In fact, re­search shows 90% of all doc­tor vis­its are linked to stress-re­lat­ed prob­lems.

Yo­ga can be that per­fect rem­e­dy al­low­ing mo­ments of “in­ten­tion­al dis­con­nect”. It is one form of ex­er­cise that helps re­lieve stress while im­prov­ing strength, bal­ance, flex­i­bil­i­ty, and over­all health. 2022 In­ter­na­tion­al Day of Yo­ga, rec­og­nizes the im­por­tance of the role of yo­ga in de­vel­op­ing ca­pac­i­ty, themed “Yo­ga for Hu­man­i­ty”.

If you can breathe,

you can do yo­ga

Patan­jali, a renowned sage, shared “If you can breathe, you can do yo­ga.” This an­cient sci­ence that orig­i­nat­ed in In­dia is uni­ver­sal in its prac­tice, re­gard­less of re­li­gious be­liefs, age, gen­der or fit­ness lev­el. A sci­ence of 1,000-plus years that of­fers im­mea­sur­able ben­e­fits to one’s in­di­vid­ual health and well­be­ing.

Yo­ga is con­sid­ered by many as a holis­tic fit­ness sys­tem, first and fore­most bring­ing a greater aware­ness of self. It goes be­yond the ba­sic me­chan­ics of ex­er­cise and fo­cus­ing on the union of the in­di­vid­ual con­scious­ness (soul) with the Uni­ver­sal con­scious­ness (spir­it). It is a sys­tem of rais­ing your abil­i­ty to per­ceive, to be present and ul­ti­mate­ly reach self-ac­tu­al­iza­tion.

Yo­ga adopt­ed by

UN in 2015

When yo­ga first “ar­rived” in­to the west­ern world, it was re­ceived with cri­tique and sur­round­ed by myths, but now has suc­cess­ful­ly en­tered main­stream, be­ing heav­i­ly en­dorsed by celebri­ties, sports per­son­al­i­ties and rec­om­mend­ed by med­ical fra­ter­ni­ties.

The con­cept of In­ter­na­tion­al Day of Yo­ga was pro­posed by Prime Min­is­ter Mr. Naren­dra Mo­di to the Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly and 177 coun­tries pos­i­tive­ly adopt­ed its for­mal recog­ni­tion by Unit­ed Na­tions, de­clar­ing 21st June 2015, the first com­mem­o­ra­tive In­ter­na­tion­al Day of Yo­ga. The Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go is in­clud­ed in the 177 coun­tries that marked this his­toric mo­ment. Dur­ing his speech, PM Mo­di shared, “Yo­ga is an in­valu­able gift of In­dia’s an­cient tra­di­tion. It em­bod­ies uni­ty of mind and body; thought and ac­tion; re­straint and ful­fill­ment; har­mo­ny be­tween man and na­ture; a holis­tic ap­proach to health and well-be­ing. It is not about ex­er­cise but to dis­cov­er the sense of one­ness with your­self, the world, and na­ture. By chang­ing our lifestyle and cre­at­ing con­scious­ness, it can help in well be­ing.”

Yo­ga can im­prove

your Fo­cus

Yo­ga com­pris­es dif­fer­ent asanas tar­get­ed to­wards the heal­ing of par­tic­u­lar health is­sues. Yo­ga pos­es func­tion by stretch­ing the mus­cles. The yo­ga asanas help you move bet­ter while re­liev­ing tired­ness or lazi­ness. It has long been known to low­er blood pres­sure and slow the heart rate. A slow­er heart rate can ben­e­fit peo­ple with high blood pres­sure or heart dis­ease, and peo­ple who’ve had a stroke. Yo­ga has al­so been linked to low­er cho­les­terol and triglyc­eride lev­els, and bet­ter im­mune sys­tem func­tion.

Ac­cord­ing to a Spe­cial Health Re­port from Har­vard Med­ical School, work­ing across mul­ti­ple sys­tems in your body at yo­ga can:

• ↓Dra­mat­i­cal­ly ease chron­ic back pain and even al­le­vi­ate arthrit­ic pain

• ↓Rev up your im­mu­ni­ty by rais­ing lev­els of dis­ease-fight­ing an­tiox­i­dants in your body

• ↓Re­duce anx­i­ety, de­pres­sion and im­prove sleep pat­terns

• ↓Low­er the need for med­ica­tions by as much as 40% in lifestyle dis­eases

• ↓En­able bet­ter emo­tion­al con­trol and re­spons­es in con­flict con­di­tions

• ↓Aug­ment cog­ni­tive be­hav­iour­al ther­a­py for chil­dren

• ↓Slow the process of ag­ing on a cel­lu­lar lev­el

Yo­ga and Med­i­ta­tion builds Re­silience

Yo­ga not on­ly pro­vides phys­i­cal and men­tal re­lax­ation but al­so de­vel­ops strength and re­silience. “In­fact, prac­tic­ing yo­ga and med­i­tat­ing reg­u­lar­ly caus­es ac­tu­al changes in our brains. Re­searchers stud­ied the brain scans of peo­ple be­fore and af­ter an eight-week “mind­ful­ness-based stress-re­duc­tion pro­gram” (they took a week­ly class and were told to med­i­tate for 40 min­utes every day). In­cred­i­bly, the “af­ter” brain scans showed sig­nif­i­cant dif­fer­ences in parts of the brain as­so­ci­at­ed with fo­cus, at­ten­tion, learn­ing, mem­o­ry, cog­ni­tion, em­pa­thy, com­pas­sion and the stress (fight or flight) re­sponse.”

Im­prov­ing Aware­ness and Com­pas­sion

In this evolv­ing chaot­ic world, a sys­tem that can di­al back both phys­i­cal and men­tal chal­lenges is rea­son enough to try it. But prob­a­bly the most con­vinc­ing rea­son would be; im­prov­ing aware­ness and love of one­self, it si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly helps to boost com­pas­sion and grat­i­tude, all of which con­tributes to greater hap­pi­ness, a con­tent­ed feel­ing of whole­ness, and can be a path to pos­i­tive­ly chang­ing the dy­nam­ics of this world.