No one has been able to put a date as to when the practice of yoga first began. The first images of yoga poses have been found in carvings dated to the Indus Valley civilization 50,000 years ago. Irrespective of its antiquity more and more people are turning to this ancient practice to find ways to improve their coping skills and to engage in a healthy lifestyle. Although yoga has come to mean a series of physical postures or ‘asanas’, with people obsessed with fitness, the true practice of yoga gives equal prominence to mental and spiritual well being. Exercise, breathing and meditation form the basis of achieving the spiritual, mental and physical discipline necessary to attain the perfect state of tranquility and spiritual insight that should be the goal of all yoga practitioners. There are over one hundred different schools of yoga with about 12 types currently being practiced. There is yoga for beginners, the physically demanding variety, yoga with props, yoga for winding down, gentle yoga and prenatal yoga among others.
Although the physical aspects of yoga have gained much prominence because of the tangible benefits of improving flexibility, balance and strength, it is becoming increasingly important as an alternative and complementary form of therapy for a range of complaints from cancer to diabetes, to back pain, stress and depression – the curses of modern lifestyles; due to the proven huge benefits that accrue in the form of physiological, psychological and biochemical changes. It is also believed that healing life energy is absorbed through the breath. These physical benefits pale besides the true purpose of yoga which is bringing the body into harmony with the mind.
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