Yoga and health

Yoga has been the subject of research in the past few decades for therapeutic purposes for modern epidemic diseases like mental stress, obesity, diabetes, hypertension, coronary heart disease, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Individual studies report beneficial effect of yoga in these conditions, indicating that it can be used as nonpharmaceutical measure or complement to drug therapy for treatment of these conditions. However, these studies have used only yoga asana, pranayama, and/ or short periods of meditation for therapeutic purposes. General perception about yoga is also the same, which is not correct. Yoga in fact means union of individual consciousness with the supreme consciousness. It involves eight rungs or limbs of yoga, which include yama, niyama, asana, pranayama, pratyahara, dharana, dhyana, and samadhi. Intense practice of these leads to self-realization, which is the primary goal of yoga. An analytical look at the rungs and the goal of yoga shows that it is a holistic way of life leading to a state of complete physical, social, mental, and spiritual well-being and harmony with nature. This is in contrast to purely economic and material developmental goal of modern civilization, which has brought social unrest and ecological devastation.