True fitness starts between the ears, say yoga experts, who note that the mental calmness through yoga practice helps activate the body’s natural healing mechanisms and promote optimal well-being.
As a form of fitness training, yoga is unsurpassed at maximizing flexibility. Yoga can also boost strength and resilience, and some forms are excellent calorie burners and endurance enhancers. Since yoga helps relieve stress, it may help people resist unhealthy behaviors, such as tension-related overeating and substance abuse.
In our stressed-out society, it’s no surprise that this ancient art is experiencing a modern renaissance, with an estimated 12 million Americans now practicing yoga–double the number of just five years ago. These include numerous celebrities and athletes, such as Madonna, Jerry Seinfeld, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Raquel Welch and Ali McGraw.
A growing number of physicians and patients also turn to yoga for its many health benefits, which were brought to the attention of Western medicine in 1990 when California physician Dean Ornish published research indicating that lifestyle strategies including yoga-based stress management could reverse heart disease. Other studies suggest that yoga may help relieve a variety of ailments including carpal tunnel syndrome, asthma, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and substance abuse.
Created more than 5,000 years ago in India, yoga is a comprehensive discipline that can have many health benefits including reduced stress, enhanced fitness, weight control, and improved blood pressure. These are actually just “side effects” of this ancient practice, the ultimate goal of which is to help mortals unite with the divine. Derived from a Sanskrit word meaning “union,” yoga uses disciplined breathing to help connect body and mind.
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