Practitioners of yoga (yogi/yogin=male
yogini=female) talk about a unification of the body, mind and spirit
acquired through practicing the yoga exercises and techniques.
One of the basic beliefs of yoga practitioners is that
our mind and body is a unified structure, which can find harmony and
heal itself, when in a proper physical, emotional, and mental balance.
As a result of these basic principles, as well as the
many visible examples of the positive results obtained through the
practice of yoga, many doctors consider yoga as having therapeutic
results, and recommend it for curing a series of illnesses, mainly
related to the nervous system.
Yoga is not a recent life philosophy. It has been
practiced for thousands of years and during all this time, people
benefited from the great results obtained. Furthermore, they conducted
investigations, in order to clearly establish the areas in which people
can obtain health benefits, by an extended practice. The information
obtained after conducting the investigations was grouped in three
categories, establishing that yoga practitioners are likely to observe
improvements in what concerns physiological, psychological, biochemical
aspects.
From the physiological point of view, prolonged yoga
practices can cure pulse rate decreases, respiratory and blood pressure
dysfunctions, it can contribute to stabilizing the nervous system
equilibrium, to normalizing gastrointestinal functions and endocrine
function, to increasing the joint range of motions, endurance level,
energy level, immunity to diseases and cardiovascular efficiency, to
improving eye-hand coordination, reaction time, dexterity skills, depth
perception, sleep, etc.
The second category, comprising psychological
benefits, points out that yoga can also contribute to increasing
somatic and kinesthetic awareness, self-acceptance and
self-actualization, social skills, well-being, as well as to improving
concentration, memory, attention, mood, learning efficiency, symbol
coding, etc.
As for the biochemical benefits of yoga, we can
enumerate substantial decreases of glucose, sodium, cholesterol, total
white blood cell and remarkable increases of vitamin C, total serum
protein, hemoglobin etc.
Furthermore, various studies revealed that yoga
exercises are extremely effective when it comes to increasing the level
of joint flexibility, together with the level of lubrication of joints,
ligaments and tendons. Another interesting aspect has to do with the
fact that yoga is one of the very few techniques, which contributes to
massaging all the internal organs and glands, including the ones that
are hardly ever stimulated during the lifetime of a person, such as the
prostate. The stimulation and massaging of the internal organs proves
to be beneficial when it comes to preventing and keeping away diseases.
Moreover, these ancient and efficient techniques
guarantee a complete detoxification of your body. When stretching the
muscles and performing a thorough massage, due to the complexity of the
yoga exercises you ensure the optimum quantity of blood supply you
need. As a consequence, toxins are eliminated from your body and
certain undesired processes, such as aging, are considerably delayed.
As a final remark, all the benefits presented above
come in addition to the most important aspect provided by yoga
practices, meaning the harmony and the synchronization between body and
mind, as well as strengthening your meditation and emotional systems.
