Yoga has established its worth, since thousands of years, in elevating the status of spiritual aspects and health. But its utility in the treatment of various diseases and disorders is yet to be established. Basically, yoga is not a therapy, but for the last couple of decades, on the basis of the outcome of several scientific and medical studies, it has been emphasised that yogic exercises are quite useful in the treatment of many diseases. Also, it works as complementary and co-therapy measure in association with medicinal therapy. Yogic exercises are effective in the health recovery, diagnosis and treatment of diseases, in the patient suffering from various systemic psychosomatic disorders / diseases in three ways, as mentioned below:
• Psychotherapeutic and relaxative effect
• Physiotherapeutic and rehabilitative effect
• Cleansing effect
For therapy, appropriate yogic exercises and kriyas may be selected to influence both the body and mind of a healthy man or a patient suffering from any specific disease. Obviously the therapist or the doctor must know the physiological and biochemical effect of those exercises along with the pathological changes taking place from time to time during the state of disease or therapy. Without adequate work plan and related knowledge, such a therapeutic measure (prescribing yogic exercises) may prove harmful. It is also equally important to evaluate any possible negative effect, if at all, of those yogic exercises, in specific conditions. Only then a viable, successful and safe system of yoga therapy could be developed and established.
Three decades ago, for the first time, the world fame Yogacharya Swami Kuvalyanand from Lonavala, Pune (Maharashtra) and Dr Vinekar have published their results based on the studies conducted in the field of yoga therapy. Swami Kuvalyanand described the nature of health and disease based on the concepts of ancient yoga shastras, and presented few positive aspects of yoga therapy.
Prof. Ram Harsh Singh, an eminent yoga scholar and Director, Malaviya Yoga Kendra, BHU, Varanasi, has expressed the view that according to yoga and Ayurveda microcosm and macrocosm, man and his environment, are of the same nature. Human being is a unit of the whole universe (Brahmand) and it contains all those elements that constitute the universe. Microcosm and macrocosm are busy interacting and affecting each other continuously. Human being remains healthy till this interaction is in a homeostatic state.
But he (man) becomes diseased at the occurrence of any imbalance in that homeostatic state and also his environment becomes polluted and damaged, which ultimately results in unbalanced human body and mind, termed disease. The correction of such imbalances in body and mind will require the correction of disturbed interaction between micro-and macrocosm. That is the basis of both Ayurveda and yoga therapy systems -:— Rogastu dosha vaishamyam dosha sammamrogata. In other words, this principle is known as Natural Rehabilitation.
Swami Kuvalyanand has opined that there are two main reasons of diseases in human body:
1. Deterioration in the normal process of blood circulatory and lymph circulatory process, which causes the unwanted retention of toxic substances in the internal body tissues. Such obstruction leads to the highly increased toxicity in the body parts.
2. Imbalanced and uncoordinated neuro-muscular, neuro-endocrine and psychoneuro-immunological activities. Both these above mentioned chain of activities are complementary to each other and invariably affect each other. Whenever there is a lack of coordination between these processes, it will lead to a pathological state in the body. In such conditions only yoga therapy may not be of much use. It then essentially needs medical aid. But in addition to that, well-thought yogic exercises and yogic therapy would improve the outcome of benefit. According to yoga shastra, yoga therapy emphasizes the promotion of immune capacity in the body, rather than concentrating on the factors causing diseases. For this, both body and mind are being prepared for cleansing, adjustment and adaptation processes.
According to Swami Kuvalyanand, “yogic therapy provides four-fold assistance in curing our ailments —
• By developing adequate mental state
• By rehabilitating neuro-muscular, neuro-endocrine, psycho-neuro-immunological mechanisms
• By adopting healthy diet and life style
• By natural cleansing activities and by internal cleansing using ‘shat kriyas’
All these activities are interdependent and complementary to each other. In fact complete benefit of these activities may be obtained when they are being applied jointly, because a living unit (body) is a unified field of body, mind and consciousness”.
We find that yoga is fundamentally different from western conventional medical practice both in its approach to health care and in its modality. In conventional medical practice attention is being paid to short cut the singular factor of disease and then its correction by using specific means, whereas in yoga it is aimed to cure the illness by improving health at the level of body, mind and consciousness, and simultaneously restoring the inner harmony. Any ailment is the outcome of total imbalance in the basic organisation and coordination among earlier mentioned sheaths (koshas) of existence. The primary disrupting influence may take place at one level in the beginning but it may spread soon to other levels. Any stimuli affecting the mind soon spread to the body (Annamaya Kosha).
In a particular profession a specific condition makes a person aggressive or mentally irritated, which simultaneously increases stress level, resulting in unusual high metabolic rate, increased muscular activity and significantly increased sympathetic response. This may lead to loss of body’s stored energy and thereafter physical weakness. It is evident here that problem starts at mental level but it goes on affecting the whole body physiology. Sometimes such problems are of very serious nature and cause chronic pathological state. (— Swami Kuvalyanand)
In yoga therapy there are all useful components that take account of every aspect of the existence, i.e. body and mind together: Shat kriyas are effective, eliminative and purificatory measures; asanas relax and tone the muscles and give massage to the internal organs; pranayama regulates the breathing and inflow of prana; meditation brings about calm and peace of mind, pacifies the emotion and upgrades the internal spirit to heal. By this way if. any negative stimuli cause imbalances, self generated positive thinking not only inhibits the spread of disruption, it also dominates in counteraction. Augmented yogic exercises, asanas, pranayama and meditational techniques, when perfomed in a planned manner with a specific purpose, prove to be much more effective.
All the components of yoga tend to give ample amount of benefits. They are not only curative elements, but also proved to be preventive devices, for all types of psychosomatic disorders. This is the precious essence of yoga therapy. Regular practice of relevant and required yogic exercises keeps the body and mind healthy, restores natural internal balance and harmony and, in case of any disease, systematic yoga sessions of relevant techniques correct the abnormality and bring back the normal healthy state.