What Is The Purpose Of Yoga And How It Helps The Overall Health
The word ‘yoga’ comes from a Sanskrit word ‘yukti’ which means ‘yoke’ or ‘union’ of the mind and soul with the body. The different methods and poses of yoga teach physical and mental discipline which also helps individuals to attain union with the divine power. This is the main purpose of yoga. But yoga has also been recommended as an adjunct therapy to many other medical conditions. The bending, stretching and balancing involved in the different poses help to align the spinal cord, stimulate circulatory system and other organs. Yoga also helps to keep the joints and muscles of the body flexible. Many yoga programs have shown to reduce the risk of heart disease, control diabetes, blood pressure and anxiety levels. Pranayama or the breath control exercise that emphasizes on deep and slow abdominal breathing is beneficial to your respiratory system. Meditation, which forms the integral part of yoga, plays a very important role to boost and strengthen your immune system. Yoga also merits many other psychological disorders like depression, anxiety, substance abuse and obsessive compulsive disorder. Researches also prove that individuals who practice yoga on regular basis score high in overall life satisfaction with low levels of irritability and psychosomatic complains. One of the main advantages of yoga is that it is highly adaptable with people of wide age group not only for physical conditioning, but for other psychiatric conditions too. All the asana and breathing exercises in yoga can be tailored according to a persons need.
Yoga Can Help To Improve Your Overall Health In Many Different Ways.
Some Physiological Benefits Of Yoga Are – Increased cardiovascular efficiency, increased grip strength, increased endurance, increased respiratory efficiency, decreased respiratory rate, decreased pulse rate, musculoskeletal flexibility, normalized gastrointestinal function, improved eye-hand co-ordination, increased energy levels, improved excretory functions, improved sleeping pattern, stable autonomic nervous system equilibrium, normalized endocrine function, decreased body pain and improved balance and steadiness.
Some Psychological Benefits Of Yoga Are – Decreased anxiety and depression, improved depth perception, increased self acceptance, decreased hostility, increased self actualization, improved attention and concentration, increased social skill, improved symbol coding, increased general wellbeing, improved memory, improved mood and lesser mood swings, improved learning efficiency, improved flicker fusion frequency, increased social adjustments, and increased kinesthetic and somatic awareness.
Some Biochemical Benefits Of Yoga Are – Balanced blood glucose levels, decreased sodium, decreased triglycerides, decreased very low density lipoproteins, decreased low density lipoproteins, increased high density lipoproteins, increased hematocrit, increased vitamin C, increased hemoglobin, and increased total serum proteins.
