Top ten health benefits of yoga

Yogacharya Shameem Akthar, trained with the International Yoga Vedanta Center, lists the top ten benefits that continue to keep yoga on the top of the must-do list for most people.

Craze for yoga has long passed the fad stage. Even when it started making inroads in the west it was not because it was an exotic Indian export of exciting poses, but getting proof along the way for its fantastic and very real benefits.

Western research centres, even in the sixties had subjected the original yoga gurus like Swami Rama, Swami Vishnudevananda, Swami Nada Brahmananda and B K S Iyengar to various tests that showed that yoga was indeed a powerful practice whose impact on the body and mind were miraculous. That was the main reason why yoga created a huge fan following all over the world.

For more of Shameem's yoga writings visit http://jaisivananda.blogspot.com. Shameem's second book Yoga in the workplace, with photographs by ace photographer Fawzan Husain, is now available at online shops and bookshops across the country. It is also available as e-book, with Kindle, Amazon.

Disclaimer: This column just shares the columnist's passion for yoga which is ideally learned under the guidance of an expert.

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1. Mental harmony

Yoga uses balancing poses, breathing practices and movements that use opposite limbs or nostrils, to harmonise the right and left brain hemispheres. This restores the inner state of balance. Biologically each side of the brain works on the opposite side of the body.

Also each brain hemisphere has specific tasks and functions. Many of us, due to genetic conditioning or upbringing tend to favor one side, creating a lopsided personality that often creates deep inner conflicts triggering excessive stress, depression, addictions or similar disturbing ailments.

By constantly making us use our different sides of the body in twists, balancers and other poses, yoga restores the communication between the left and right brain hemispheres. This is also facilitated by the alternate nostril breathing called nadi shodhana. The logical left and the creative right find a state of balance through yoga.
 
2. Physical balance

The act of balancing is a fine skill that we lose progressively due to age, sedentary life-style, alcohol consumption, lack of exercise. This creates postural defects that in turn affect breathing and self-esteem. It also can cause falls in old age, often leading to bed rest or hospitalisation.
 
The sense of balance is a fine skill modulated by the cerebellum and other parts of the nervous system. These skills are also linked in the brain areas dealing with impulse control, reactions to fear and anxiety. So the postural defects that we suffer not only affect us physically but also emotionally.  The balancing poses removes these defects to restore us back to our natural state of balance.

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3. High energy levels

Yoga is widely practiced for spiking energy levels to superhuman heights. In fact, it is part of the life of most achievers all over the world. The practice restores energy levels by boosting the respiratory capacity, expanding lung volume.  Several poses also spike energy by pressing into acupressure points along major energy meridians in the body.

It is the only complete practice or exercise routine which applies such  pressure on acupressure points. Some good examples would be the locust pose where the pressure is applied on the chin directly (it has anti-aging acu-points); the fish applies pressure along the inner lower arms (lymphatic drainage points).

The heart is also powered regularly through inversions, which again hit on major master glands in the brain and the endocrine system, setting off the energy signals to a natural high.
 
4. Metabolism spike

The metabolism is naturally spiked through the stretches. But most specifically this happens with poses that apply pressure on the thyroid gland at the throat and other poses that press into the abdomen, thus massaging the entire gut to youthful tone.

The poses that apply pressure on the thyroid include the inversions like the psychic union pose, shoulder stand, plough, and backbends like the fish, locust, bow, camel, cobra, to name a few. The thyroid is directly dealing with metabolism.

Also the pressure on the abdomen affects the pancreas in a positive way so that blood sugar levels are normalized. Often diabetes reacts to yoga therapy miraculously, with near normal blood sugar levels restored (in adult onset diabetes) in just six weeks to three months of daily practice.

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5. Mood elevation

A dynamic regimen of yoga is recommended for depression and natural mood elevation. Most practitioners who advance into interesting or intense practice will report a natural high which protects them from addictive behavior, depression or other nervous system disorders including insomnia, hyperactivity, lack of attention or memory failure, lethargy or mental fogginess.

This happens for several reasons. In the chest openers, the expanded respiratory capacity gives a natural high from elevated oxygen levels in the blood. In the forward bending poses, through the soothing and cooling effect of increased blood flow to the brain, the mind becomes centered and focused.

In balancing poses, through the effect on the cerebellum and ability to control destructive impulses one reaches a sense of control that gives a super-high. In arm balancers, the challenge and adventure that is encouraged to take on the poses gives a natural spike in the feel-good hormones.

6. Tension release

The stretches dislodge tensions that contract our muscles. Some of the spots that react to mental stress with painful contracted muscles are the hips, the lower back, the neck, shoulders. The stretches gently release such hidden but troubling tensions from the body.

Also forward bends soothe the brain by increasing blood flow to it. Under excessive stress more blood flows to the limbs and less to the brain in a primitive, flight or fight response.  By reversing this, through forward bends, yoga helps us become tension free.

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7. Immunity
 
It is one of the most natural immune boosters. Progressive and enlightened doctors encourage patients with chronic ailments to take up yoga as part of their defence arsenal. The chest openers by pressing into the thymus are said to restore it back to it original strength against attack from outside sources. Even meditation, it has been found, increases the immune T-cells in our body.
 
8. Healing
 
In most of the chronic ailments it helps heal or control the ailment. In blood pressure and diabetes treatment  yoga therapy has near miraculous and immediate effect that may be seen in just six to three months. In helps asthma patients slowly regain confidence.

Similarly, confidence and strength is slowly raised in those patients suffering from chronic bronchitis too. In some ailments where its impact may be less dramatic, it nevertheless helps acts a perfect foil for conventional medical therapy and medication. Even in terminal illness meditation is often used to improve endurance to pain.

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9. Strength

Yoga uses the body itself as well as the force of gravity to build both types of natural muscle fibers called slow twitch and fast twitch muscle fibers. Most sports or exercise tend to favor one type of fiber or the other, depending on the nature of the sport. However in yoga both types are built so that the body is not only strong but also flexible.

The slow twitch muscle fibers are used in endurance sports, while fast twitch is used in sprinting or other such sports where speed is of essence. Healing happens naturally only when we cultivate both types of these fibers, as happens in yoga.
 
10. Mental stamina

Arm balancers and inversions take mental stamina to a new level. These poses like the peacock, crow, the scorpion require tremendous focus, mental fearlessness and playfulness.

They also simultaneously work on the cerebellum, the master glands and the fine network of nerves that service the limbs to create a web of kinesthetic intelligence which creates the right base for mental stamina.