What is Yoga? Definition of Yoga.

Yoga is a systematic technology to improve the body, understand the minds, and free the spirit. Yogis tend to be more flexible, stronger, more energetic, thinner, and more youthful than people who don’t do yoga. And what’s happening on the outside is a reflection of what’s happening to every system of the body. With the practice, you are strengthening and calming the nervous system. You are increasing the blood flow to internal organs and bringing more oxygen to your cells. You are clearing the mental clutter that can wreck your life, allowing you to see things more clearly. You are cultivating the spiritual muscles in a way that can make you happier, less anxious, more at peace.

Yoga has a number of tools that can help overcome one of the chief factors undermining the health and well-being of many in the modern world: and out-of-balance stress-response system. Since stress is a factor in a host of medical conditions – from heart attacks to infertility – yoga’s role in stress reduction helps explain why it is useful in so many situations. But stress reduction is good for everybody, not just the sick. One yoga class or even a single breathing exercise can leave you feeling calmer and more centered.

Yoga’s health benefits can in part be explained by the fact that the various stretching, breathing, movement, balance, meditative, and strength practices – the elements of what’s knows as hatha (pronounced HOT-hu, not HATH-ah) yoga – provide many of the benefits of other worthwhile activities like walking, weight lifting, or biofeedback, plus a whole lot more. And unlike such health-club standards as StairMasters, stationary bikes, and treadmills – where the minutes seems to go by painfully slowly – yoga can be fun. Most people who do it regularly discover that yoga gets more interesting over time. I don’t know anybody who feels that way about stomach crunches.

There is a continuum of effects from yoga. First, it can relax you. It can also, sometimes in fairly short order, lead to the relief of some symptoms of illness. With sustained practice, particularly of the stretching and strengthening exercises known as asana, and the breathing techniques knows as pranayama, the body and breath become stronger. Posture and lung capacity improve, as does bowel function, lymphatic drainage, and the functioning of the immune system. Gradually one feels more balanced, better able to endure the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.

In fact, yoga is all about balance. Many people have the impression that the physical practice of yoga is about being flexible, but physical flexibility is not the primary goal of asana practice; balance is. Some people who come to yoga, particularly soem women, are very flexible; what they need is strength. Other people, including many men, are pretty strong when they first come to yoga, but lack flexibility. Some yoga students are debilitated by fear. Others have trouble staying motivated. Some people can’t relax. What the practice of yoga does is challenge you wherever you need it, transforming liabilities into strengths, making you a more balanced person. Asana practice is itself balanced because it involves doing different poses from each of the major categories. Ideally, if your condition allows, your practice will include some vigorous poses which are balanced with relaxation. This is one reason why yoga classes almost always end with Savasan (shaavasna).

(more…)

Yoga as a medicine.

Whether you are sick or weak, young, old or even very old, you can succeed in yoga if you practice diligently. – Svatmarama (Hath Yoga Pradipika)

If you are new to yoga, welcome. Yoga can change your life. If you are currently practicing yoga but want to learn more, you probably already know something of yoga’s life-changing potential. If you are sick, it can help you feel better. If you are depressed or anxious, tired all the time, addicted to drugs, or bothered by low back pain, yoga can set you on the path to recovery. For those with chronic health problems like arthritis, diabetes, multiple sclerosis, or HIV/AIDS, regular yoga practice can help you live better and, in all likelihoood, longer. And for people suffering temporary symptoms – such as tension headaches, hot flashes, or sinus pressure – specific yoga postures, breathing techniques, and other practices can bring relief.

Yoga is quite simply the most powerful system of overall health and well-being I have ever seen. Even if you are currently among what might be called the temporarily healthy, as preventive medicine, yoga is as close to one-top shopping as you can find. This single comprehensive system can reduce stress, increase flexibility, improve balance, promote strength, heighten cardiovascular conditioning, lower blood pressure, reduce overweight, strengthen bones, prevent injuries, lift mood, improve immune function, increase the oxygen supply to the tissues, heighten sexual functioning and fulfillment, foster psychological equanimity, and promote spiritual well-being… and that’s only a partial list.

Yoga has a decidedly different view from Western medicine’s about what constitutes health – and this may be a big part of why it’s so effective. The absense of symptoms is in no way equated with health in yoga. Health to the yogi extends far beyond not having a headache or knee pain – or even being cured of cancer. It is about optimizing the function of every system in your body from the muscles to digestion, circulation, and immunity. It is about emotional well-being, spiritual resilence, and buoyancy, even joy. Yoga teaches that only when these elements are aligned can you maximize your chance for health and healing.

Yoga envisions a web of causation that is much more complex than the limited number of factors most doctors consider. In the case of heart disease, for example, it looks beyond cholestrol and blood pressure to stress and the role of the mind in perpetuating it, your emotional temperament, your connections to other people, and whether you are living your life in accordance with some larger purpose. The idea is that a wide variety of factors can affect your well-being, and the most efficient way to remedy health problems is to work on many areas simultaneously. This is precisely what the practice of yoga does.

In yoga, you do your spiritual work and it affects the body. You stretch and strengthen your muscles and that affects your circulation, digestion, and breathing. You calm and strengthen the nervous system and it affects the mind. You cultivate peace of mind and it affects the nervous system, the immune system, and the cardiovascular system. Yoga says that if you look clearly you will see that everything about you is connected to everything else. From a therapeutic standpoint, this provides the insight that you improve the functioning of any one organ or system by trying to improve all.

Thus a crucial difference between yoga as medicine and conventional medicine is yoga’s holistic emphasis on strengthening you throughout your body and mind. If you go to most doctors feeling out of sorts but without specific pain or other symptoms, with the exception of ordering a few tests to rule out the possibility of various diseases, they generally won’t have much to offer you. If you’re interested in making your nervous system more resilent, boosting immunity, or improving your ability to breathe, they’ll have little to suggest.

(more…)