Dr. Bishnu Ram Baishya
Yoga is derived from the Sanskrit word ‘yojh’, and its equivalent in English is the word ‘yoke’ from the Latin ‘Jugum’. Yoga, first of all, was orientated in India, and then its practice was accepted almost all over the Eastern world. At present, yoga, the traditional science, is known in Tibet as Zen, in China as Kung-Fu and in Japan as Karate. Judo, Kung-Fu, etc., are nothing but dynamic modifications of static yogi asanas or yogic postures.
Yogic thought attributes most illness to internal weakness, which occurs due to defective connection between one’s inner life force and outer life force. When that connection is cut off, it means death. Air is the only medium to conduct the outer life force.
According to the oriental theory, the inner life force accumulates at special centres of the body which are called chakras, from which we draw it in proportion to our needs. These chakras answer, therefore, the same purpose as do electric accumulators. All voluntary and involuntary reflexes exhaust them, and so when our accumulators are run down, they must be recharged by supplying sufficient pure oxygenated air. This sufficient supply is possible only through the regular practice of yoga or yogic pranayama. Yoga is not a magic, “although it may seem mystical to a non-practitioner, but a scientific way to put one into contact with one’s inner life force or prana that stirs within each of us and makes us living creatures”.
Now we have come to a conclusion that if the internal weakness is eliminated through yogic exercises, there is no room for disease.
Both Eastern and Western health specialists, after experimentation, have come to the conclusion that the health of a person depends upon
• The strength of the nervous system,
• The activation of the glands (especially endocrine glands)
• The efficiency of the internal organs, and
• The flexibility of the spine.
All these conditions are completely fulfilled by yogic asanas and yogic pranayama. Yogic pranayama, or breathing exercise, especially strengthens the nervous system. Asanas make the muscles, tendons, ligaments, joints, blood vessels, lymphatics, and internal organs ‘much more vascular, healthy, and strong and keep the glands in an active and balanced state; flexibility of the spine is maintained up to old age by practice of yogic asanas. Yogic asanas keep the glands in an active and balanced state by stimulating them. Such stimulation is done by creating localised or generalised heat, tension, mechanical pressure and massage or friction. An electric current can be produced along with a magnetic field surrounding the body by practising yogic pranayama and yogic meditation, electric-current continuous flow of air in one direction and magnetic field by keeping the head towards the North Pole and feet towards the South Pole in a lying down, supine position or sabasana position. There are particular asanas for stimulation of particular glands. For instance, the pituitary gland is stimulated by shirsasana, the thyroid gland by sarvangasana and glands inside the abdomen by mayurasana. uddiyanbandha, nauli and so on.
Western experimentation has shown that internal organs, when well exercised, enlarge (slightly), like skeletal muscles, and that these “stronger” organs are more immune to diseases. Asanas serve that purpose well. Moreover, while practising pranayama, the lungs expand and contract, and the chief respiratory muscle – diaphragm – ascends and descends; as a result, the nearby organs, like the heart, liver, and gall bladder, are thereby strengthened. After this, yoga pursues a double object.
Firstly, yoga makes the harmonious union of our physiological functions and their corresponding organs possible.
Secondly, it makes the harmonious union of our physiological life within our natural environment a reality.
Now, we shall discuss the chief changes which occur during the practice of yogic exercise.
Change in the cardiovascular system.
General – heart rate, venous return. Cardiac output – increased. Vasomator centre-stimulated vasoconstriction. Blood pressure raised.
Local – closed blood vessels opened up, vasodilation. Increased vascularity. Slow blood flow.
Changes in the Respiratory System
Pulmonary ventilation increases proportionally but comes to normal quickly after stopping exercise.
Respiratory Quotient: almost normal.
Changes in blood cell count: rises. Acidosis is present only for carbonic acid. Alkali reserves: reduced. Lactate: normal. Urine Reaction: acidic (without pranayama). Skin Sweating: nil or slight. Fatigue: delayed and nil after savasana. Recovery: quick.
After experimentation, it has been observed that in Shirshasana, blood pressure rises after the second minute, and the maximum rise of blood pressure is 15 mm of Hg; in Sarvangasana, blood pressure rises after the second minute; and in Matsyasana, blood pressure rises rapidly and falls rapidly. After finishing yogic exercises, a very slight fall in blood pressure has been observed below the normal level.
If asanas are practised with pranayama, acidosis is never produced; rather, the pH of the blood regains normalcy. If the practice of pranayama is more than the practice of asanas, alkalosis results due to excess washing out of carbon dioxide and formation of more bicarbonate. Alkali reserves increase after the practice of pranayama.
The gravitational force of the earth opposes the upward flow of arterial blood in the case of upper extremities and venous blood in the case of lower extremities, for which blood vessels become exhausted, and then nervous weakness results. The exhausted blood vessels can be made relaxed by changing the position of the body, that is to say, by upside-down posture, say shirasana. This relaxation makes the blood vessels healthier and stronger (or more flexible) for an adequate supply of blood to nervous and other tissues of the body. No other exercise, except yoga, can serve this great purpose. Moreover, an upside-down posture in yoga prevents dizziness, nervous weakness, haemorrhoids, her
Mayurasana. Uddiyan bandha and nauli create peristaltic movement in a constipated patient, and therefore those three yogic exercises have immense therapeutic value in curing constipation.
Abnormal blood pressure can be made normal by a slow and gradual increase in the practice of yoga. Savasana cures high blood pressure, hypertension, cardiac weakness, nervous weakness, etc.
On ordinary respiration only one sixth (1/6) pan of the lungs takes part in gaseous exchange. Harmful foreign bodies deposit in the remaining five-sixths (5/6) part of the lungs, which may lead to respiratory diseases. Full utilisation of both the lungs is possible by conscious deep breathing. Pranayama, which prevents the onset of respiratory diseases and increases the ventilatory capacity of the lungs. Health, we mean to say, complete physical, psychological, social and spiritual development of an individual, is possible only through regular practice of yoga. In one sense yoga is “material”, and in another sense it is spiritual. That is to say, yoga is both an art and a science.