How to stay healthy?
Have you noticed what happens when you get a cut on your body? Even if you do nothing about it, you have no doubt noticed that it heals all by itself. While we might have taken this for granted over the years, it is actually quite miraculous when you think about it.
What this reveals is that the body is actually a self-healing mechanism – no less. The easiest way to good health would be to keep the various bodily systems functioning properly so that its self-healing powers remain effective. With our hectic lifestyle and tensions, we do not pay enough attention to the body. It is only natural that over time, one or more systems in the body start to weaken, resulting in ailments. Often the solution to these issues is to get these bodily systems functioning properly once again. You can avoid medicines and other artificial interventions to an unbelievable extent simply through healthful practices.
Can Yoga help?
How then do we keep bodily systems functioning properly? In terms of bang-for-the-buck, Yoga is arguably one of the best solutions. Each Yoga posture stimulates one or more internal organs and either keeps it functioning properly or improves its functioning if it has started to slack off. You start to reap seemingly miraculous benefits very quickly. Almost any amount of regular practice helps. Bodily systems respond very well to exercise. Best of all, the road to health or recovery is not strewn with all kinds of side-effects! You do not surrender your health to some external entity like a doctor and instead take charge yourself.
You might think that your body is in too bad a shape for you to start on Yoga. Nothing can be further from the truth. No matter how unfit you think you are, you will be amazed by how quickly you can see improvements through regular practice. Although even small amounts of regular practice (as little as ten minutes a day), can be useful, it would be best if you regularly practice a reasonably complete set of postures. This is because performing each posture involves several muscles. Doing only a few postures affects only a small set of muscles and therefore limits your progress. However, when you exercise a large set of muscles regularly, you will see rapid improvements in your ability to perform a wide range of postures.
A set of exercises or just a few postures?
I have seen first-hand the benefits of a complete set of exercises, as opposed to doing only a few postures quite regularly. I started out learning Yoga from books way back in 1981. I got hold of a great book covering the basic Sivananda sequence. However, since I was working without a teacher, I could not do all the postures/movements. I found that I was able to do some of them and was completely incapable of doing many others. For example, I was able to do the Sun Salutation, Shoulder stand and some other postures and was at a loss when it came to the Head stand, Forward bend and many others. I could easily sit in the Full Lotus posture, but the Diamond pose (Vajrasana ), would cause me unbearable pain in the ankle after a very short time. As a result, I built a fairly regular practice comprising the set of postures that I could do. I found that even after years of practice, my performance in these postures that I could do right from the start never improved very much. Between 1981 and 2009, I have been doing these postures and exercises in fits and starts, in spells of regular practice lasting several months at a time, but saw no significant change in my ability to do these postures/exercises.
In summer 2009, I attended a Yoga Vacation at a Sivananda Ashram and learnt the complete Sivananda sequence over 15 days from trained instructors. Of course I was unable to do several of the postures even at the end of the 15-day period. In fact I was not even in a position to attempt the Headstand and the Crow pose at the end of this period and was achieving hardly any “bend” in my Seated Forward Bends . However, my daily practice included all but two postures in the sequence, even though my attempts at several of the postures were downright laughable. Even the Sun Salutation which I had been doing for almost 20 years off and on at this point was still nowhere near perfect; I could not do the forward bending segments without significantly bending my knees.
After keeping up regular practice for a year, I have seen dramatic improvements in all postures. My Sun Salutation is now very close to perfect and I can sit in Vajrasana for as long as I want without pain. I am now able to do the headstand for 4 minutes and can do the Crow pose. I believe that the improvements that eluded me for decades finally materialized mainly because I regularly practices a complete set of postures that stretched a whole set of muscles, thereby enabling me to bring many more muscles into play for various postures.
Will I see any benefits?
Before I attended the Yoga Vacation, my blood pressure was border-line hypertensive. After just 15 days of the Yoga Vacation, my BP was completely normal. For at least a decade before I attended the Yoga Vacation I had been suffering from constant lower back pain. For the past year, I have been completely free of lower back pain except for two occasions where I induced the pain by over-exerting in some postures. Other than these, I have seen a general overall improvement. I feel that I am thinking more clearly and creatively and feel much less stressed.