How to use meditation for pain relief?

With its origins in ancient religious and spiritual traditions, meditation is a widely used mind-body practice used even today, to complement medical procedures and treatments.

Although, used mostly for relaxation and stress reduction, meditation-based therapy is increasingly offered in medical centers and clinics today to manage pain and reduce anxiety prior to surgeries. Surprised? Recent studies have shown that frequent practice of meditation can lead to significant control of pain. Read on to know how meditation alters your pain perception and quells pain even better than some of the most powerful drugs.


Meditation and common forms:

The term meditation refers to a set of techniques wherein a person minimizes the activity of the mind without altering the level of alertness. Broadly, the technique has been categorized under five basic categories:


Mantra meditation:

This comprises the Transcendental Meditation techniques, Clinically Standardized Meditation and Relaxation Response. In this process, by repeatedly using a sound or phrase, a person focuses to achieve a state of perfect consciousness.


Mindfulness meditation:

This form of meditation involves focusing on what you experience while performing the technique like the very flow of your breath.


Yoga:

Here, a person attempts to achieve a state of calmness by combining bodily postures with controlled breathing. Tai-Chi - A form of Chinese martial arts, the technique is performed using self-paced series of movements in a slow-graceful manner along with deep breathing. Qi gong - This involves a combination of meditation, breathing exercise, relaxation and physical movements.

Meditation and pain management: In the past, meditation has been explored extensively for its effects on stress reduction and other similar clinical functions. However, researchers have now identified another significant health benefit of the technique that suggests that it is actually possible to overcome debilitating pain with the help of meditation. What's more, some of these studies have also suggested that the pain-relieving effects of meditation might be even more effective than morphine.

Back in April, 2011, a study by the researchers at the Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center indicated that a person can attain at least 40 per ent decrease in pain intensity and 57 per cent in pain unpleasantness merely by practicing these techniques regularly. This decrease in pain was found to be much higher than with morphine or other pain-relieving drugs. With the help of magnetic resonance imaging, the brain activity of study participants after meditation demonstrated how the technique increased the activity of certain areas which are responsible for pain perception.


Despite such findings, scientists were unable to ascertain the actual mechanism of this phenomenon until now. According to a recent research published at the Brain Research Bulletin, investigators from Harvard, MIT and Massachusetts General Hospital have identified a possible answer. They suggested that the explanation probably lies in alpha waves manipulation in the brain.

How daily meditation can improve your health

Most often than not, we take for granted this simple and important ancient technique of meditation and how it can improve your health.

Since stress is the major cause of 21st century lifestyle diseases, the age-old technique of meditation comes to your rescue. Here is how you can meditate and also find out the health benefits of meditation.

Health benefits of meditation:

Stress: Meditation can help prevent stress and slowly release pent up stress.

Sensory organs: Meditation opens up your senses and makes your five senses receptive.

Reduce anger: While reducing stress, meditation also reduces anger.

Make better decision: With daily meditation, you have a calm approach and sharpened alertness and you are now better equipped to make better decisions.

Sense of completeness: With reduced anger, low stress levels and increased capacity at work, you will feel you can complete a lot more in your day. With a clear mind, you can think of ways objectively.

Happiness: All these positive traits will only heighten your sense of happiness. Daily meditation ensures to fight stress and control rage hence releases happiness hormones.

Sleep: Relaxation from daily meditation helps you fall asleep quickly and naturally. Since your mind is clear of worried thoughts you can easily fall asleep, peacefully.


Meditation is:

-Letting go of the anger from the past
-Letting go of the events of the past
-Letting go of all the planning for the future
-Accepting this moment
-Living every moment totally - with depth


Meditation technique for beginners:

1) Find a quiet and isolated place away from distractions.
2) Sit crossed legged on the floor and relax your hands on your knees.
3) Gently close your eyes and inhale slowly (short breathes). But you need to inhale from your nose and exhale from your mouth.
4) Slowly increase the capacity of oxygen; this will help rejuvenate the lungs.
5) Pay attention to every breathe you take.
6) You can also play slow instrumental music to help you focus and calm our senses.

Stay fit with candle-light yoga

Stay fit with vertical marathons, crosstrain and candle-light yoga.

Climbing 10 floors of a building 10 times in 30 minutes. Sounds scary? Well, it certainly didn't deter a bunch of fitness enthusiasts who recently conducted a mini vertical marathon. Also, in a bid to break away from routine, groups of people have added a twist to their yoga sessions by trying out candle-light yoga, and to beat mental stress, some have even tried to perfect their hand at fire poi. Here's a look at some of these fun workouts that have caught the fancy of fitness freaks:

CrossTrain workouts

This workout is about functional movement wherein you perform actions of running, jumping, squatting, throwing, pushing, etc at a high intensity. This workout is literally like a boot camp. Even in the pouring rain, you see people working out thrice a week. "Come cold, heat or rain, we carry on. It's fun, inspiring, it builds your stamina and makes you fitter," says Pawan Jani, a personal trainer. "It's about high intensity functional movement. You will rarely do the same workout twice. By doing something different every time, you keep the body guessing and eliminate plateaus and boredom common in traditional programmes. Certain benchmark workouts, however, are repeated every 2-3 months to measure performance improvements," adds Pawan.
Vertical Run
A vertical marathon is an alternative to the road marathons wherein participants climb stairs.

Candle-light yoga
As the name suggests, participants do yoga in candle-light. The focus is to be calmer and more relaxed as you go through various yoga asanas. A group of women, who attend yoga classes together, decided to try out something new. "Yoga is also a form of meditation and lighting a candle adds to the experience. I heard about candle-light yoga from a friend living in the UK so we thought of trying it out," says homemaker Kavita Shashidhar. "Post 7.30 pm, we laid our mats out in my garden and lit candles. It was a beautiful experience. We included meditation as well as power yoga and worked out for an hour in the open," she adds.
Fire Poi
It's a performance art aimed at bettering your eye, hand and body coordination. One twirls a poi, which can be made with various materials. It is a good muscle toner and more of a stress buster. As you twirl the fire baton, you need coordination of the eyes, a focussed mind and body movement. Pastry chef Namrataa Kripallani, who undertook a workshop in Poi recently, says, "It's more fun than a routine workout. It betters your coordination and tones your arms.".

How to use meditation for pain relief?

With its origins in ancient religious and spiritual traditions, meditation is a widely used mind-body practice used even today, to complement medical procedures and treatments.

Although, used mostly for relaxation and stress reduction, meditation-based therapy is increasingly offered in medical centers and clinics today to manage pain and reduce anxiety prior to surgeries. Surprised? Recent studies have shown that frequent practice of meditation can lead to significant control of pain. Read on to know how meditation alters your pain perception and quells pain even better than some of the most powerful drugs.


Meditation and common forms:
The term meditation refers to a set of techniques wherein a person minimizes the activity of the mind without altering the level of alertness. Broadly, the technique has been categorized under five basic categories:


Mantra meditation:

This comprises the Transcendental Meditation techniques, Clinically Standardized Meditation and Relaxation Response. In this process, by repeatedly using a sound or phrase, a person focuses to achieve a state of perfect consciousness.


Mindfulness meditation:

This form of meditation involves focusing on what you experience while performing the technique like the very flow of your breath.


Yoga:

Here, a person attempts to achieve a state of calmness by combining bodily postures with controlled breathing. Tai-Chi - A form of Chinese martial arts, the technique is performed using self-paced series of movements in a slow-graceful manner along with deep breathing. Qi gong - This involves a combination of meditation, breathing exercise, relaxation and physical movements.

Meditation and pain management: In the past, meditation has been explored extensively for its effects on stress reduction and other similar clinical functions. However, researchers have now identified another significant health benefit of the technique that suggests that it is actually possible to overcome debilitating pain with the help of meditation. What's more, some of these studies have also suggested that the pain-relieving effects of meditation might be even more effective than morphine.

Back in April, 2011, a study by the researchers at the Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center indicated that a person can attain at least 40 per ent decrease in pain intensity and 57 per cent in pain unpleasantness merely by practicing these techniques regularly. This decrease in pain was found to be much higher than with morphine or other pain-relieving drugs. With the help of magnetic resonance imaging, the brain activity of study participants after meditation demonstrated how the technique increased the activity of certain areas which are responsible for pain perception.

Despite such findings, scientists were unable to ascertain the actual mechanism of this phenomenon until now. According to a recent research published at the Brain Research Bulletin, investigators from Harvard, MIT and Massachusetts General Hospital have identified a possible answer. 

How yoga keeps you fit and healthy

Everything we do calls for stress and constant running around. In the middle of all this chaos, yoga is a great way to connect with your inner self and stay healthy at the same time. 

Through its deep breathing, stretching, mindful exercise, yoga is also an effective method to keep most stress-related diseases at bay. In fact, no matter what your lifestyle, you could learn a thing or two from this ancient exercise form that benefits your mind and body, both. Here's looking at why yoga is meant for people of all shapes and sizes...yes, even you!

Yoga helps combat stress. The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine found that yoga has a positive impact on various kinds of neurological disorders. Their findings suggest that yoga might help patients in fighting with the symptoms of neurological disorders such as acute headache, psychological depression and so on. Published in the journal of Psychosomatic Medicine, this study revealed that women, even beginners, who practice hatha yoga may boost happy hormones by diminishing stress levels.


Yoga helps asthma patients. According to a research study presented at the 56th Annual Meeting of the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) in Seattle, adults who suffered from asthma experienced "increased quality of life and reduced asthma symptoms after 10 weeks of yoga practice".

Yoga helps in battling weight loss in middle age. While on the one hand yoga helps increase strenght and flexibility, it also helps with weight loss when you reach middle age, according to a study conducted by researchers at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Centre in Seattle. Researchers studied that people who are overweight in their middle age and who practised yoga daily for over a decade lost considerable amount of weight.


Yoga even helps cancer patients fight fatigue. Cancer survivors who practice yoga are able to sleep better and fight fatigue more efficiently, according to a recent study. Yoga helps reduce stress levels and boosts the immune system. Thus yoga forms like hath yoga are increasingly recommended to all cancer survivors, combined with restorative breathing exercises to help improve their sleep patterns.


Tips for Starting Yoga. We recommend a few things to keep in mind: Go for a style that suits your body type: Yoga classes and asanas may differ for people with different body types. Some may only focus on meditation and deep breathing, whereas others might focus on rigorous and strenuous yoga moves. You and your body type are unique: Understand this: Yoga is not only about flexibility. Don't try and idealise images and postures as presented in glossy health magazines. Those are people who have attained this kind of flexibility after years of practice and fitness routine. Go at your own pace.


Maintain your own pace: There is no need to rush into any kind of asana or yoga pose too soon. Use straps, blocks or other tools to suit your needs and requirements. Ask your yoga instructor for help and make sure you take adequate rest and proper precautions. Listen to your body: Don't force yourself into any of the asana. Try and read your body signals and stop when you think you can't take it anymore.


The right way of incorporating yoga in your daily workout routine. Depending on what your needs are, you can choose a yoga routine that works for you or you could participate in a host of workout activities at a time. The best way to go about overall fitness will be to do weight training for strength, circuits/rope jumping/sprinting/kickboxing for cardio fitness and Yoga for flexibility.   

How yoga keeps you fit and healthy

Everything we do calls for stress and constant running around. In the middle of all this chaos, yoga is a great way to connect with your inner self and stay healthy at the same time. 

Through its deep breathing, stretching, mindful exercise, yoga is also an effective method to keep most stress-related diseases at bay. In fact, no matter what your lifestyle, you could learn a thing or two from this ancient exercise form that benefits your mind and body, both. Here's looking at why yoga is meant for people of all shapes and sizes...yes, even you!

Yoga helps combat stress. The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine found that yoga has a positive impact on various kinds of neurological disorders. Their findings suggest that yoga might help patients in fighting with the symptoms of neurological disorders such as acute headache, psychological depression and so on. Published in the journal of Psychosomatic Medicine, this study revealed that women, even beginners, who practice hatha yoga may boost happy hormones by diminishing stress levels.


Yoga helps asthma patients. According to a research study presented at the 56th Annual Meeting of the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) in Seattle, adults who suffered from asthma experienced "increased quality of life and reduced asthma symptoms after 10 weeks of yoga practice".

Yoga helps in battling weight loss in middle age. While on the one hand yoga helps increase strenght and flexibility, it also helps with weight loss when you reach middle age, according to a study conducted by researchers at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Centre in Seattle. Researchers studied that people who are overweight in their middle age and who practised yoga daily for over a decade lost considerable amount of weight.


Yoga even helps cancer patients fight fatigue. Cancer survivors who practice yoga are able to sleep better and fight fatigue more efficiently, according to a recent study. Yoga helps reduce stress levels and boosts the immune system. Thus yoga forms like hath yoga are increasingly recommended to all cancer survivors, combined with restorative breathing exercises to help improve their sleep patterns.

Tips for Starting Yoga. We recommend a few things to keep in mind: Go for a style that suits your body type: Yoga classes and asanas may differ for people with different body types. Some may only focus on meditation and deep breathing, whereas others might focus on rigorous and strenuous yoga moves. You and your body type are unique: Understand this: Yoga is not only about flexibility. Don't try and idealise images and postures as presented in glossy health magazines. Those are people who have attained this kind of flexibility after years of practice and fitness routine. Go at your own pace.


Maintain your own pace: There is no need to rush into any kind of asana or yoga pose too soon. Use straps, blocks or other tools to suit your needs and requirements. Ask your yoga instructor for help and make sure you take adequate rest and proper precautions. Listen to your body: Don't force yourself into any of the asana. Try and read your body signals and stop when you think you can't take it anymore.

The right way of incorporating yoga in your daily workout routine. Depending on what your needs are, you can choose a yoga routine that works for you or you could participate in a host of workout activities at a time. The best way to go about overall fitness will be to do weight training for strength, circuits/rope jumping/sprinting/kickboxing for cardio fitness and Yoga for flexibility.     

How yoga keeps you fit and healthy

Everything we do calls for stress and constant running around. In the middle of all this chaos, yoga is a great way to connect with your inner self and stay healthy at the same time. 

Through its deep breathing, stretching, mindful exercise, yoga is also an effective method to keep most stress-related diseases at bay. In fact, no matter what your lifestyle, you could learn a thing or two from this ancient exercise form that benefits your mind and body, both. Here's looking at why yoga is meant for people of all shapes and sizes...yes, even you!


Yoga helps combat stress. The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine found that yoga has a positive impact on various kinds of neurological disorders. Their findings suggest that yoga might help patients in fighting with the symptoms of neurological disorders such as acute headache, psychological depression and so on. Published in the journal of Psychosomatic Medicine, this study revealed that women, even beginners, who practice hatha yoga may boost happy hormones by diminishing stress levels.


Yoga helps asthma patients. According to a research study presented at the 56th Annual Meeting of the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) in Seattle, adults who suffered from asthma experienced "increased quality of life and reduced asthma symptoms after 10 weeks of yoga practice".


Yoga helps in battling weight loss in middle age. While on the one hand yoga helps increase strenght and flexibility, it also helps with weight loss when you reach middle age, according to a study conducted by researchers at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Centre in Seattle. Researchers studied that people who are overweight in their middle age and who practised yoga daily for over a decade lost considerable amount of weight.


Yoga even helps cancer patients fight fatigue. Cancer survivors who practice yoga are able to sleep better and fight fatigue more efficiently, according to a recent study. Yoga helps reduce stress levels and boosts the immune system. Thus yoga forms like hath yoga are increasingly recommended to all cancer survivors, combined with restorative breathing exercises to help improve their sleep patterns.

Tips for Starting Yoga. We recommend a few things to keep in mind: Go for a style that suits your body type: Yoga classes and asanas may differ for people with different body types. Some may only focus on meditation and deep breathing, whereas others might focus on rigorous and strenuous yoga moves. You and your body type are unique: Understand this: Yoga is not only about flexibility. Don't try and idealise images and postures as presented in glossy health magazines. Those are people who have attained this kind of flexibility after years of practice and fitness routine. Go at your own pace.


Maintain your own pace: There is no need to rush into any kind of asana or yoga pose too soon. Use straps, blocks or other tools to suit your needs and requirements. Ask your yoga instructor for help and make sure you take adequate rest and proper precautions. Listen to your body: Don't force yourself into any of the asana. Try and read your body signals and stop when you think you can't take it anymore.

The right way of incorporating yoga in your daily workout routine. Depending on what your needs are, you can choose a yoga routine that works for you or you could participate in a host of workout activities at a time. The best way to go about overall fitness will be to do weight training for strength, circuits/rope jumping/sprinting/kickboxing for cardio fitness and Yoga for flexibility.      

How yoga keeps you fit and healthy

Everything we do calls for stress and constant running around. In the middle of all this chaos, yoga is a great way to connect with your inner self and stay healthy at the same time. 

Through its deep breathing, stretching, mindful exercise, yoga is also an effective method to keep most stress-related diseases at bay. In fact, no matter what your lifestyle, you could learn a thing or two from this ancient exercise form that benefits your mind and body, both. Here's looking at why yoga is meant for people of all shapes and sizes...yes, even you!


Yoga helps combat stress. The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine found that yoga has a positive impact on various kinds of neurological disorders. Their findings suggest that yoga might help patients in fighting with the symptoms of neurological disorders such as acute headache, psychological depression and so on. Published in the journal of Psychosomatic Medicine, this study revealed that women, even beginners, who practice hatha yoga may boost happy hormones by diminishing stress levels.


Yoga helps asthma patients. According to a research study presented at the 56th Annual Meeting of the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) in Seattle, adults who suffered from asthma experienced "increased quality of life and reduced asthma symptoms after 10 weeks of yoga practice".

Yoga helps in battling weight loss in middle age. While on the one hand yoga helps increase strenght and flexibility, it also helps with weight loss when you reach middle age, according to a study conducted by researchers at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Centre in Seattle. Researchers studied that people who are overweight in their middle age and who practised yoga daily for over a decade lost considerable amount of weight.


Yoga even helps cancer patients fight fatigue. Cancer survivors who practice yoga are able to sleep better and fight fatigue more efficiently, according to a recent study. Yoga helps reduce stress levels and boosts the immune system. Thus yoga forms like hath yoga are increasingly recommended to all cancer survivors, combined with restorative breathing exercises to help improve their sleep patterns.

Tips for Starting Yoga. We recommend a few things to keep in mind: Go for a style that suits your body type: Yoga classes and asanas may differ for people with different body types. Some may only focus on meditation and deep breathing, whereas others might focus on rigorous and strenuous yoga moves. You and your body type are unique: Understand this: Yoga is not only about flexibility. Don't try and idealise images and postures as presented in glossy health magazines. Those are people who have attained this kind of flexibility after years of practice and fitness routine. Go at your own pace.


Maintain your own pace: There is no need to rush into any kind of asana or yoga pose too soon. Use straps, blocks or other tools to suit your needs and requirements. Ask your yoga instructor for help and make sure you take adequate rest and proper precautions. Listen to your body: Don't force yourself into any of the asana. Try and read your body signals and stop when you think you can't take it anymore.

The right way of incorporating yoga in your daily workout routine. Depending on what your needs are, you can choose a yoga routine that works for you or you could participate in a host of workout activities at a time. The best way to go about overall fitness will be to do weight training for strength, circuits/rope jumping/sprinting/kickboxing for cardio fitness and Yoga for flexibility.      

How to use meditation for pain relief?

With its origins in ancient religious and spiritual traditions, meditation is a widely used mind-body practice used even today, to complement medical procedures and treatments.

Although, used mostly for relaxation and stress reduction, meditation-based therapy is increasingly offered in medical centers and clinics today to manage pain and reduce anxiety prior to surgeries. Surprised? Recent studies have shown that frequent practice of meditation can lead to significant control of pain. Read on to know how meditation alters your pain perception and quells pain even better than some of the most powerful drugs.


Meditation and common forms:
The term meditation refers to a set of techniques wherein a person minimizes the activity of the mind without altering the level of alertness. Broadly, the technique has been categorized under five basic categories:


Mantra meditation:
This comprises the Transcendental Meditation techniques, Clinically Standardized Meditation and Relaxation Response. In this process, by repeatedly using a sound or phrase, a person focuses to achieve a state of perfect consciousness.


Mindfulness meditation:
This form of meditation involves focusing on what you experience while performing the technique like the very flow of your breath.


Yoga:
Here, a person attempts to achieve a state of calmness by combining bodily postures with controlled breathing.
Tai-Chi - A form of Chinese martial arts, the technique is performed using self-paced series of movements in a slow-graceful manner along with deep breathing.
Qi gong - This involves a combination of meditation, breathing exercise, relaxation and physical movements.


Meditation and pain management: In the past, meditation has been explored extensively for its effects on stress reduction and other similar clinical functions. However, researchers have now identified another significant health benefit of the technique that suggests that it is actually possible to overcome debilitating pain with the help of meditation. What's more, some of these studies have also suggested that the pain-relieving effects of meditation might be even more effective than morphine.


Back in April, 2011, a study by the researchers at the Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center indicated that a person can attain at least 40 per ent decrease in pain intensity and 57 per cent in pain unpleasantness merely by practicing these techniques regularly. This decrease in pain was found to be much higher than with morphine or other pain-relieving drugs. With the help of magnetic resonance imaging, the brain activity of study participants after meditation demonstrated how the technique increased the activity of certain areas which are responsible for pain perception.

Despite such findings, scientists were unable to ascertain the actual mechanism of this phenomenon until now. According to a recent research published at the Brain Research Bulletin, investigators from Harvard, MIT and Massachusetts General Hospital have identified a possible answer. They suggested that the explanation probably lies in alpha waves manipulation in the brain.

How yoga keeps you fit and healthy

Everything we do calls for stress and constant running around. In the middle of all this chaos, yoga is a great way to connect with your inner self and stay healthy at the same time. 

Through its deep breathing, stretching, mindful exercise, yoga is also an effective method to keep most stress-related diseases at bay. In fact, no matter what your lifestyle, you could learn a thing or two from this ancient exercise form that benefits your mind and body, both. Here's looking at why yoga is meant for people of all shapes and sizes...yes, even you!

Yoga helps combat stress. The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine found that yoga has a positive impact on various kinds of neurological disorders. Their findings suggest that yoga might help patients in fighting with the symptoms of neurological disorders such as acute headache, psychological depression and so on. Published in the journal of Psychosomatic Medicine, this study revealed that women, even beginners, who practice hatha yoga may boost happy hormones by diminishing stress levels.


Yoga helps asthma patients. According to a research study presented at the 56th Annual Meeting of the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) in Seattle, adults who suffered from asthma experienced "increased quality of life and reduced asthma symptoms after 10 weeks of yoga practice".

Yoga helps in battling weight loss in middle age. While on the one hand yoga helps increase strenght and flexibility, it also helps with weight loss when you reach middle age, according to a study conducted by researchers at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Centre in Seattle. Researchers studied that people who are overweight in their middle age and who practised yoga daily for over a decade lost considerable amount of weight.


Yoga even helps cancer patients fight fatigue. Cancer survivors who practice yoga are able to sleep better and fight fatigue more efficiently, according to a recent study. Yoga helps reduce stress levels and boosts the immune system. Thus yoga forms like hath yoga are increasingly recommended to all cancer survivors, combined with restorative breathing exercises to help improve their sleep patterns.

Tips for Starting Yoga. We recommend a few things to keep in mind: Go for a style that suits your body type: Yoga classes and asanas may differ for people with different body types. Some may only focus on meditation and deep breathing, whereas others might focus on rigorous and strenuous yoga moves. You and your body type are unique: Understand this: Yoga is not only about flexibility. Don't try and idealise images and postures as presented in glossy health magazines. Those are people who have attained this kind of flexibility after years of practice and fitness routine. Go at your own pace.


Maintain your own pace: There is no need to rush into any kind of asana or yoga pose too soon. Use straps, blocks or other tools to suit your needs and requirements. Ask your yoga instructor for help and make sure you take adequate rest and proper precautions. Listen to your body: Don't force yourself into any of the asana. Try and read your body signals and stop when you think you can't take it anymore.


The right way of incorporating yoga in your daily workout routine. Depending on what your needs are, you can choose a yoga routine that works for you or you could participate in a host of workout activities at a time. The best way to go about overall fitness will be to do weight training for strength, circuits/rope jumping/sprinting/kickboxing for cardio fitness and Yoga for flexibility.     

Improve your lifestyle with yoga

This year's New Year resolutions, worldwide, made by people from different countries and cultures, had one common thread: They wish to improve the quality of their lives through concerted effort, and so they resolved to pursue a more healthy lifestyle.

Overwork, stress, erratic lifestyle without thought to structure, and a sedentary way of life have all contributed to ill health and in some cases, even poor self-esteem. How can all these problems be resolved?

Health is the prime concern today, important for individual as well as social welfare. Keeping this in view, it's instructive to know more about the holistic concept of yoga and its relevance in modern times so that we can understand its importance and value and be encouraged to incorporate it in our lifestyle . Yoga is a precious gift; a panacea from ancient to modern living.


What is yoga? Why yoga? We just have to be aware about it. Actually we are aware but we need to know more and go into it through experience; only then it fulfils its true meaning. Yoga is an important philosophy of our ancient Indic tradition. The different schools of yoga are Samkhya, Vedanta, Tantra, Yoga, Uttar mimansa, Poorva mimansa, Nyaya and Vaiseshika. So it has deep origins. This we have got from different Upanishads and other ancient scriptures.

Yoga comes from the root Sanskrit word yuj which means to unite and integrate different layers of existence. There are a number of definitions of yoga. In Patanjali's Yoga Sutra, it is defined as Atha Yogaha Anushashanam. It means it is the state of discipline, harmony. Here 'anu' means subtle and 'shashan' means to govern. It reveals harmony and governance at subtler layers of existence. When different layers of personality - body, mind, emotion, psyche and spirit - are integrated, we come into a state of discipline and harmony. In order to achieve harmony we have to integrate our dimensions of personality.


Yoga is also Yogah Chittvritti Nirodhaha - cessation of mental modification. It means when we become disciplined, the disturbance in our nature goes away. Our scriptures and philosophies were born of inquiry and they became a guideline and foundation of our Santana (eternal) culture.


All philosophies were born, developed and revolved around the five fundamental questions:

1. What is this body? How does it function and how is it born?

2. What is prana or life force? How does prana relate to the physical dimension of the body? 

How does energy interact with matter? How does prana interact with the body?

3. What causes prana to manifest in different forms? What is the reason of creation of matter and other elements?

4. What is soul? How can it be experienced?

5. How can transcendental state, salvation or renunciation be achieved?


Yoga deals with the practical aspect of our life and makes us aware and experience the higher dimensions of our nature or self. This leads to the unity of the higher self. As Swami Shivananda said: ''An ounce of practice is more precious than tons of theory''.