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1. Freedom from sickness | 2. Ability to handle stress | 3. Muscular fitness | 4. Life Extension & Anti-Aging | |
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Yoga was designed in part to give the ancient yogis a healthy body so they could live long enough to advance spiritually as far as they possibly could.
Way Down at the Cellular Level
How does yoga can increase life-span and keep the body young? The scientific explanation offered pertains to the effect of yoga on the individual cells of our bodies.
When our muscles, glands and organs are stressed during a yoga practice sustained over an extended period of time our cells react to the stress. They learn how to function better in these abnormal situations; they modify their structure by absorbing new nutrients not ordinarily required and by modifying their excretory system.
Cellular Bliss
These two modifications (improving the supply of nutrients and helping remove toxic cellular waste) enable the cell to hold more energy within it. The cell, now a better cell, ("blissful," if you will), can now devote more energy to the constructive "anabolic" process rather than the destructive, aging "catabolic" process.
(Most degenerative or metabolic diseases can be permanently cured by yoga, it is asserted, because of this direct effect that the asanas have on the metabolism of diseased cells.)
Yoga and Ayurveda
Okay. But what about the rest of the day, when you are not doing yoga? Is there a way to live during the day that will help you live a long and healthy life? Yes, said the ancients. Through Ayurveda, (aye-your-vey-dah), literally 'the science of life'. Ayurveda is an Indian health-care system, a sister to yoga; together the two are a complementary package designed to achieve health and longevity.
Ayurveda is enjoying increased Western interest today as the West discovers that its medical system cannot fully explain everything, is not the be-all and end-all. (One remembers vividly seeing a Chinese medical team on TV removing a brain tumor without anesthetics, using acupuncture on the awake, alert, pain-free patient.)
Ayurveda and Lifestyle
Whereas Western medicine has been criticized by some for having been primarily reactive, concerning itself with prescribing remedies for ailments, Ayurveda, though also reactive, has been, from the start, proactive, or "holistic." It prescribes specific lifestyles (encompassing the entire spectrum of human activity) for health and longevity. These lifestyle aspects of Ayurveda are often considered more in tune with "modern" thinking than the remedies it has offered.
And, whereas Western medicine runs tests and prescribes
the cures based on statistical norms, Ayurveda teaches that there are
immense differences between human beings, and that the lifestyle appropriate
for one type may not be appropriate for another. That seems sensible;
and I can only say that my personal experience is that the Ayurvedic lifestyle
prescribed for my type has been, for me, life-enhancing.
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