Yoga

Stressful work environments and harried schedules cause difficulty to many people trying to balance their busy lives. More and more, people who have trouble keeping their work and personal lives balanced are discovering yoga. Yoga helps them achieve peace of mind and helps them reach that ideal work-life balance.

Interest in this traditional practice has been piqued by the mind-body connection, and studies reveal that it can lower stress levels and blood pressure, enhance on-the-job performance, and even slow the aging process.

Although the focus on yoga may be different depending on the environment, its basic premise is to relax the body while keeping the mind focused and alert. For instance, by practicing yoga, your focus in on the movements of your body, your breath, a certain sound, or possibly an object. When your mind wanders, as it inevitably will, you bring your attention back and start again.

The ancient practice of yoga garnered renewed interest in the 1960s, when those interested in consciousness began to follow its practices. However, after this, yoga began to fall out of favor. This might be because yoga isn’t quite the same as many other kinds of exercise.

For instance, to get all the benefits, patience is critical. It offers steady but slow results. This is in direct contrast to the almost frenetic activity and quick results of aerobics.

Lots of people hurry out to exercise energetically during their lunch break, and then dash back to their workplace. Of course, it’s probably physically beneficial, but it still adds pressure to an already overwhelmed life. Yoga, by contrast, offers a less competitive and stressful way to work out, while supporting and even causing an overall feeling of simply “being.”

One of the major reasons yoga is making a comeback is because it can be so healing as an activity. The over-the-top push for fitness generated by the traditional exercise regimes of aerobics, running, or weight lifting has led to a rash of injuries, including neck pain, back pain, or strained knees.

Today, even health practitioners are getting in on yoga practice, with chiropractors, neurologists and orthopedic surgeons sometimes referring patients to specific yogis during treatment.

In fact, it’s moving to the mainstream increasingly. Many business and hospitals are now offering yoga classes; books on yoga are on the bestseller list, and internet discussion groups on the topic abound.

Surprisingly, perhaps, even the Army has gotten in on the act. It has asked the National Academy of Sciences to study New Age techniques such as meditation to see if soldiers’ performance can be enhanced in this way.

Also, yoga has become popular among those who weight train, run or do aerobics because of its stress reducing benefits.

Around 60 to 90 percent of visits to the doctor in the U.S. are tied to stress. Cost effective and safe, a mind-body approach is an ideal treatment for this condition that doesn’t involve surgery or drugs. Among people who use these techniques, 34% of patients who are infertile get pregnant within six months, while 70% of those who have trouble sleeping or even have medically defined insomnia become regular sleepers. In addition, the numbers of those suffering from pain and making regular doctor visits because of it go down by 36%.