Yoga and Health

The word Yoga in Sanskrit means integration, or unification. Yoga is an ancient science, practiced in the east for thousands of years, emphasizing the importance of integration between body and soul, making our life harmonious and balanced. As we all now, our mind and body are connected, and when one of them is not healthy the other suffers too. A healthy and happy soul make for healthy physical body, and vice versa.

Yoga also aims to unify our own awareness and the universal, the cosmic. We want to achieve harmony between ourselves and the universe.

In the west, we often mix between yoga and asana, which is the practice of physical postures and poses. Yoga includes the asana, but is more than it, as it is a philosophy which includes physical and mental discipline. The actual practice of yoga includes the asana and the meditation and breathing exercises, called the pranayams.

The practice of yoga, both in its physical exercises and the meditation is beneficial to one’s overall health in many ways. Practice of yoga has a positive influence on all bodily systems. It improves your posture, slows down the aging process, strengthens your immune system, and helps losing weight and maintaining a healthy body weight. It also makes our muscles more flexible, builds our self confidence and will power, and gives us more stamina and vitality. It helps coping with stress, anxiety and depression, and improves concentration and learning as well as ill power. Practicing yoga on a regular basis ensures a healthy lifestyle and peace of mind. It is ideal as a daily exercise for people over 40, and its practice does not require a lot of space or equipment.

There are many types of yoga, each type emphasizing a different part of the yoga philosophy, and contributing to the person's physical and mental health in a different way. Some types of yoga focus on the meditation and inner harmony; others emphasize devotion and prayer, contributing to a person's inner calmness, and others emphasize the various fitness exercises. A western yoga follower will, on general, pick up a few elements from several yoga types, building his or her own yoga way to health, physically, mentally and spiritually.