What Is the Importance of Yoga in Our Daily Life?
For the past few decades, there has been huge importance and requirement for yoga. Celebrities and medical professionals are not only following it, but they are even recommending the regular practice of yoga as it provides a lot of benefits.
There are some that regard yoga just like one of the prevailing fashions. Also, they feel that it is related to the brand-new age of mysticism. Others advocate the astonishing feeling this exercise provides. What they cannot understand is that which they assume as another form of exercising, will indeed profit them in various ways that they never thought of.
Right before we dive into the benefits yoga provides, it is important to know what exactly yoga is about. Well, it is not a religion. Frankly, it is just a way of living that aims to a healthy mind present in a healthy body. Humans are physical, spiritual, and mental being. Yoga can assist in creating a balance among all the three.
Other types of exercises like aerobics will lead to physical wellbeing. Such exercises will not have or little to do with the improvement in the astral or spiritual body. You need to understand that yoga is not just twisting or bending the body or even holding one’s breath. Just think of it as a technique for bringing you into a state that helps you to view and experience reality in the way it is.
When you allow your body’s energies to be ecstatic and exuberant, the sensory body of yours expands. Hence, this will allow you to experience the whole universe as a simple part of yourself, making it as one. This is the union that yoga develops.
What Is Yoga Really?
The word yoga is derived from Sanskrit and it means to ‘unite or join’. Not only yoga exercises have a physical effect, but also it brings about a good amount of balance among your soul, body, and mind. Yoga indeed helps one to deal with all their issues, worries, and even everyday demands. Basically, it influences one to understand about themselves, the purpose of their life. Plus, it develops a relationship with the almighty.
Sometimes yoga can lead to the spiritual path of knowledge and eternal bliss, leading to the union of the eternal self and the universal self. Of course, yoga is supreme as well as the infinite principle. It is the ray of life that can be considered as the universal cognizant awaking. Many years ago, sages started to analyse the cosmos and nature through deep meditation. Not only that, they even started to explore the principals involved in the spiritual and material branch, laws of nature, and energy that works within and at the spiritual level.
Systematic yoga that one needs to follow in daily life is taught at the various yoga centre worldwide like fitness centre, rehabilitation centres, sports centre, adult education centre, health institutions, and the list goes on and on. Basically, yoga is suitable for people of all ages. It requires no special skills or ‘stunt’ skills. Plus, it provides the unfit, physically retarded, and ill the power for practicing deep exercising.
No doubt, yoga is necessary for our day-to-day life. Perseverance, positive thinking, orientation, discipline, prayer, etc along with being kind and humble will lead to the path of self-realization and self-knowledge.
What Yoga Does?
The following are reasons why one needs to do yoga daily –
- Develops our mental health
- Develops our physical health
- Develops our spiritual health
- Develops our social health
- Helps in our self-realization
What Is the Value of Yoga?
The regular practice of yoga over an extended period will help one to get in touch with their inner core. For example, most of the physical postures or asanas will help in harmonizing the body. Also, it will help in balancing the nervous system.
The breathing practice aka pranayama will calm as well as balance the mind and body. The relaxation practice called yoga nidra will release tensions at many levels of the body as well as mind. Also, it will lead to an inner sense of harmony. There are other practices of yoga like self-service which is called as karma yoga, truthful self-inquiry called as swadhyaya, seeking the assistance of the wise, reading inspiring books like satsang, developing compassion and doing good which is seva, chanting sacred sounds (mantra), singing devotional songs which is known as kirtan, and having an intensity of purpose called as sankalpa, etc are open to the protective shield that hides our true nature.
Yoga Psychology & Modern Psychotherapy – The Co-Relation
Now it is interesting to know that there are certain schools of modern psychology. They have a worldview and this view relates to personality development. Of course, this can be quite compatible with the yogic perspective.
Self-Management
To be the master of oneself, i.e. the sense of disciplining the mind and this even consists of one’s actions, thoughts, and speech, etc are nothing but the idea that is inspired by schools of philosophy and spiritual traditions. Just like the saying goes that the journey across the world begins in a single step, here the first step is to practice the mastery of oneself, and that too in daily life.
Frankly, this can be a major practice and leads to being perfect. Self-management is related to the ability for dealing with one’s emotions, and coping up with major conflicts, psychological or physical pain, losses or separation, illness, managing one’s desire, needs, ambitions, etc thereby allowing one to fully do the required duties. All this can be done in a stable mind as well as a strong and healthy body.
Awareness Is the Major Key
Not many people are aware that awareness can be considered as the key principle that underlies all the yogic practices. Here the key to unlocking to the doors of our true nature is in this awareness. No doubt, awareness can be the major foundation for handling one’s relationship and emotions, achieving the best in one’s activities and work, and gaining acceptance for oneself and that too for any skilful action.
Most importantly, the practice of awareness in the day is a necessary practice in itself; also, it is an important part of the Karma Yoga. There are various benefits of practicing awareness even in the day like relaxation and focused mind, heightened concentration, gaining control over the action of oneself, making changes from being driven and setting one’s own pace and selecting the best as well as correct action.
Practicing Awareness in The Day
There is no harm in taking time out during regular intervals. This can even be followed whenever certain signals occur like when the phone is ringing, before meals, washing your hands, walking up the stairs, looking at your watch, or whenever you remember.
Keep in mind that you must witness the breath and the breathing rhythm and the surroundings like the colours, smells, and sounds. Also, one needs to witness one’s feelings as well as thoughts. Here it simply means being aware of how one can easily automatically make sure to slow down their awareness.
Managing Emotions
The foundation of inner and outer harmony is to handle one’s emotions. It is important to witness the emotions as and when they arise. Plus, you would have to embrace the emotions along with attitude and awareness in terms of kindness and acceptance. This will help in transforming the wholesome emotions that are unwanted like an outburst of anger into the wholesome emotions like compassion.
Hence, if anger has risen, then try to witness the fact that anger has arisen. Then you must embrace the anger just like how a loving mother embraces her small child. Of course, at times you might feel depressed. In that case, you should understand the depression and try to witness the feeling of understanding and compassion.
Frankly, it is important not to criticize, condemn, or blame yourself and that too for unwanted feelings. However, it is rather important to witness that is arising from it along with understanding and compassion. Keep in mind that emotions, feelings, and thoughts for that matter can or often crop up without being asked for.
They would really take us by surprise. Through regular practice of awareness, it will become easy to remain stable in any kind of situation that often comes up and even regains the basic clarity of one’s mind. This would easily provide you the freedom to act as and when you wish.
You will not feel compelled by emotions and other compulsive thoughts. Frankly, it is necessary to be able to distinguish among being caught up in the given feeling. Also, being aware that you can sometimes be swept away because of it. Here the key is to bring the ‘Head, Hands, and Heart’ into the harmony.
What Are the Benefits of Yoga?
1) Flexibility and Fitness
Office workers must constantly sit in their office seat for most of the day. This will lead to reducing muscle mass, flexibility, and fitness. Plus, work might lead to shoulder and neck strain when one bends over while sitting in front of the computer all day long. Now yoga poses help in stretching these kinds of muscles.
Also, it helps in increasing the elasticity of the muscles that even assists in daily movements like bending, lifting, etc. Various athletes all around the world include yoga in their workout for maintaining flexibility.
2) Stress Management and Anxiety
Regular practice of yoga helps in lowering one’s stress. Many studies and research support that stress-related conditions like cardiovascular diseases and blood pressure will drastically reduce when the inflammatory responses to the stressors present in the body lowers. Also, meditation is one of the most useful components for reducing stress.
3) Emotional Well-Being
No doubt, meditation, and yoga are very much important for improving the mind’s focus. Plus, it provides the overall senses of well-being. Various doctors feel that people that do yoga feel calm, happy, and positive compared to the ones that do not follow it. Yoga and meditation provide good emotional improvement and that too using deep relaxation. This can easily be practiced by doing a ten to fifteen-minute meditation break right at one’s desk.
4) Improving Health and Leading to Better Diet
Our modern life is filled with a lot of stressful situations, exhaustion from long hours of work, and less sleep. Also, we end up being hypersensitive and suffer from an anxiety disorder. Through the practice of various yoga poses in your life, you can easily improve your value and even the quality of life. Also, by improving your health, you can take part in more physical activities and feel a bit better at doing things every day.
5) Helping in Fighting Diabetes
Through the regular practice of yoga, you can reduce the level of sugar in your blood. Also, your blood pressure can be reduced, and it would be easy to keep a check on your weight. Basically, the practice of yoga will lower the symptoms and the progression of diabetes. It will even reduce the severity of further complications.
Do you know stress can be termed as one of the major reasons for diabetes and even for lifestyle diseases? It will raise the secretion of the glucagon hormones and even increases the level of blood glucose in the human body.
Wrapping Up
By living in harmony with oneself and one’s inner nature is important. Yoga helps you to achieve this and provides systematic practices for achieving your goals. Most importantly, it helps to develop the inherent goodness in individuals which can be expressed externally. In our life, we need certain stress-relieving exercises that can make us happy and help us in being mentally stable.
Through a good and peaceful mind and soul, we end up contributing to a better world. Also, we live a happier life without any troubles. We get to live a life that is filled with peace and tranquillity.
