YOGA IN HEALTH AND DISEASE

 

Transformation, the path of evolution illustrates the fact that matter in its ultimate form is energy. The physical body if can undergo a state of metamorphosis, then the only way is Yoga. Through the process of Yoga the body is rendered so subtle and pure that it is transformed into a yogic body which is unaffected by old age and disease. Etymologically the word Yoga is derived from the Sanskrit root ‘yujira’ meaning to unite, to combine or to integrate i.e. the union of individual soul or consciousness with the cosmic or supreme soul. Yoga is considered as actual state of self-realization and the sovereign remedy for all worldly miseries. The art and science of Yoga is as old as Rigveda and help to develop a sound mind in sound body. Being a method of preparing the system for spiritual awakening, it is also a very important science for health. Hath Yoga and Raja Yoga are so much operational for physical and mental health that the present society which is being dragged towards the frightful calamities of the future by the false sense of sense values is looking for Yoga to maintain the balance of health. Yoga with its physio-psychological approach is proving worth to be adopted in day to day life.

 

Yoga - Spiritual or therapeutic

In Yoga we have all the reservoirs of life to draw upon, of which we don’t dream. It formulates the methods of getting at our deeper levels. The Yoga discipline is nothing more than the purification of body, mind and soul, and preparing them for beautiful vision. Though the eighth stage and ultimate aim of Yoga is attaining the salvation (samadhi), but it can only be achieved by passing through the initial stages which are yama, niyama, aasana, pranayama, pratyahar, dhaaran and dhyaan. This conveys that the path of spirituality and the path toward supreme soul first necessitate pure mind and body.

Purity of mind is achieved through yama and niyama while purity of physical body requires aasana and praanayam which further leads to dhaaran, dhyaan and Samadhi. Yoga is neither religion nor doctrine, but rather one’s own personal process of self-realization through untainted mind and body. This permits us to at least exploit the areas of Yoga where we can discover ways of sustain health, prevent and cure diseases.

 

Is Yoga really required???

As emphasized earlier, Yoga is primarily focused around mental and spiritual development of man enabling him to realize the ultimate truth. Whether such a discipline could have any health potential i.e. practice of Yoga could be method of preservation of health and treatment of diseases or not, remains the matter of controversy. In the view of the growing application of Yoga to the problems of health and disease supported by the statistics that Yoga is sixth most commonly used complementary health practice among adults^[1], it is necessary to analyze whether ancient thinkers conceived the medical and health application of Yoga or not. Various references from ancient literatures support the notion that Yoga has been deemed to be of value in health care. For example, according to Shandilyopanishad, the use of aasanas especially bhadrasana will be panacea for all ills and the antidote against all poisons. The practice of kumbhaka removes disorders of throat and stimulate the digestive power according to hath Yoga pradeepika. To upkeep all these numerous researches have been conducted on Yoga to explore its efficacy, many of them giving inspiring results.

 

Yoga’s kinetics and dynamics

It is good to know that the ancient thinkers required us to realize the possibilities of the soul in solitude and silence and transform the flashing and fading moments of vision into a steady light which could illumine the long years of life. As stated in Katha Upanishad, if one considers soul as riding in a chariot, body as the chariot, intellect as the chariot driver, mind as the reins and senses are the horses; whose senses are under control like the good horses of a chariot, mind is constantly held firm, and he who has the understanding reaches the goal. This is considered as Yoga, this firm holding back of the senses and undistracted mind.^[4] The gap between two aspects of mind, one which try to maintain discipline and the other which try to break it should be minimized to control the mind. These two aspects nurture the positive and negative attitude. A positive mental attitude is a basic importance or health and longevity, just as the negative one is apt to lead to ill-health and disease. In fact, they are the harbingers of health and disease respectively. No chronic disease can linger on or even dare invade a sound mind housed in a sound body. According to yogic science if the energy flowing inside the body through different srotasa (bodily channels) is dispersed through physical, mental, emotional and psychic imbalance leads to manifestation of ailments. This way of monitoring mind and body as whole makes Yoga really wonderful to ponder upon. This not unknown to world that physical illness can create mental ailment and vice versa, so to retain health in well acclimatized state Yoga comforts a lot by virtue of its philosophical, psychological and unique spiritual approach. Yoga leads to an integrated and total cure of five constituents (pancha kosha) and not merely to a superficial relief of symptoms and signs of disease. Hatha Yoga primarily caters to and cares for first two constituents which are physical frame (annamaya kosha) and sheath of bio energy(pranamaya kosha) through asana, shatkriya, etc. The remaining three constituents are for self-realization. Shatkriyas and some of the Yogasana like dhanu-halasana etc. do augment and energize the digestive fire (agni bala), thus helping in restoring the physiological process.

 

Yoga in physical and mental health

As Homo sapiens is an integration of limbs and organs and senses – external and internal. Though externals are visible but the internal, the mind and intellect are subtle and hence very formidable. The mind again is aggregate of feelings and emotions, both bad and good. Decontaminating the mind of bad facets and reconditioning it to the good ones is the supreme aim of Yoga through yama and niyama in ashtanga Yoga. This is how mental health is maintained. The etymology of hatha, where ‘ha’ means life and ‘tha’ means mind states that balance of life i.e. energy and mind should be there, imbalance of which can cause disease manifestation. Regular Yoga practice creates mental clarity and calmness, relaxes mind and sharpens the concentration level. Meditation itself enhances mental health and invigorates improved mood. Yoga helps in creating meaning out of sufferings and help feel physical sense of self which prevent us from various life style disorders. According to classical text, the yogi gets well retained health by means of asana, sin by pranayama and gives up the mental disorders by withdrawing the mind (pratayahar), by Dharana (firmly fix the mind) he attains mental fortitude and in Samadhi (absorption) acquires consciousness to attain liberation. This is how the eight part of ashtanga Yoga lead to self-realization. The benefits of all asanas on health has been mentioned in the Yoga literatures by the pioneers which itself ratifies that how beneficial is Yoga in maintaining balance of mind and physic. And the researches prove the belief with their positive findings. One of the research conducted found that Yoga increases peripheral nervous system activity, decreases cortisol, stimulates vagal nerve resulting in prevention of stress. Also, it has been found that regular practice of Yoga lower an inflammatory protein cytokine interleukin-6 that is normally linked to aging and stress along with increase in IL-6 which lowers the risk of arthritis, heart disease, stroke, type 2 DM and a host of other age related debilitating diseases. The stretching and poses that comes with Yoga actually increases a person’s flexibility and that, in turn, allows relaxation which can lower stress. A study which compared the effects of Yoga; and aerobic exercise and concluded that Yoga is more effective than aerobics at improving a variety of health related outcome measures.  Another study found that practice of improves the cognitive function.  Even the mere correct proper of ‘OM’ produces more the two lakh vibrations per second as evidenced by Dr. Howards Steingril in his study. It has been discovered that health benefits of chanting ‘OM’ during Yoga sessions include calmness of mind, improved immunity, increased concentration, improved breathing and relief from symptoms of asthama. Asana being a specific position which opens the energy channels and psychic centers, helps one get steadiness of body and mind, disease less and flexibility of limbs.  When one practice asana, steadiness develops, prana moves freely, and there is less chance of disease occurrence. Just as stagnant water is breeding ground for all sorts of creatures, likewise stagnant prana invites diseases. Hence, Yoga helps prana move freely inside minute channels (srotasa) to sustain health.

Yoga in physical and mental diseases

In today’s lifestyle of hurry, worry and curry; health remains a great matter of concern. New and new diseases are being discovered and numbers of lifestyle disorders are alarmingly increasing. Though Yoga cannot be used as a conventional method for all these harms but it will certainly add more effect to the treatment and correction of life style. It is true that practice of Yoga require more time and more effort on the part of patient than conventional therapies, but in term of permanent, positive as well as saving enormous expenditure in medicines, they are certainly more worthwhile. Yoga is not a meager exercise, its effect on body are far better and different from that of exercises. As emphasized earlier also body has to be treated as a whole considering both body and mind, the treatment of mere symptoms is acute relief. Ill health of one system creates ill health in the rest of body. One cannot say that stomach is bad but everything else is alright. So body should be treated as unabridged and hence Yoga works. Yoga has the healing power supported by the research on 200 breast cancer survivors with the result showing decrease in in inflammatory markers by 10 to 15 percent after the three month of Yoga practice. Effect of Yoga for tackling depression is also encouraging. Given the effectiveness of mindfulness, exercises and relaxing techniques in improving the symptoms of depression, it logically follows that Yoga would  also be a beneficial intervention as it encourages self-acceptance and relaxation. Researches indicated that increase in level of acetylcholine, catecholamine levels in blood were note after Yoga practices with decrease in plasma cortisol and nitrogen.  Another research on patients of alzheimer’s disease generated positive results thus evidencing the role of Yoga in curing diseases.

Yogaasana have their individual benefits too. For example, shirsasana is beneficial in alopecia, pavanamuktasana in anemia, padahasthasana for diabetes. Likewise pranayama like kapalabhati for athama, sheetali for painful diseases of head are really beneficial. The action of Yoga over limbic system is definitely helpful to healthy sex-life because emotional behavior, courtship and mating are responses concerned with limbic system of brain. Thus Yoga doesn’t only prevent diseases but also cure those which have invaded the mind and body through its own principles.

Future scope of Yoga

The growing popularity of Yoga and its increasing socialization attracted many workers for scientific enquiry in the science of Yoga. It must be highlighted here that the current height of interest in Yoga could not have been emerged unless there was a real need for it. During last one and a half decade there has been an amazing arousal of interest in Yoga throughout the world specially in the industrially developed countries of the west. This sudden disproportionate arousal of interest in this subject coincides with the rapid increase in the level of anxiety and tension in the modern society. With the growing urbanization and industrial development in western countries, the society has been faced to varying social conflicts, mental tension and stressful situations which have precipitated into a very high incidence of major psychosomatic diseases like hypertension, ischaemic heart diseases, bronchial asthama, diabetes mellitus, peptic ulcers, ulcerative colitis etc. The modern medical profession has failed to prevent this class of ailments which has emerged as a dreadful problem before the modern society. Necessary de-westernization and life style could be of some help to these ailments. Thus the current arousal of interest in Yoga centers around the scope of possible utility of Yoga as life style modifying tool has taken current trend. Thus this trend of the study and interest in Yoga is to evaluate the physiological effects of various Yoga practices to establish its scientific basis so that such practices may be applied to tackle certain problems on mental and physical health. Another aspect of the current interest in the field is to evaluate the therapeutic utility of Yoga and to use it as method of treatment. Thus there is a trend to use Yoga as a system of medicine in forthcoming years with tremendous scope.

Swami Vivekanand once said that Yoga is controlling the senses, will and mind. The benefit of its study is that we learn to control instead of being controlled. If one gets mastery over the body, all the miseries of the world will vanish. Fools say that work and philosophy are different, not learned. The learned know that, though apparently different from each other, they at last lead to the same goal of human perfection. One doesn’t need to perform everything of yoga. In this highly busy world, health is the main issue and it has to be taken care of.  Practice of Yoga as an anti-stress, anti-anxiety measure, measure to prevent stress disorders and psychosomatic diseases, physical culture and as system of medicine is what is required in this stressful world filled with large amount of health issues.