The positive effects of yoga therapy on your health

“It is not possible to put yoga in a jar, otherwise it would be the world’s best-selling medicine” – Murali Duraiswamy, neurobiologist and psychiatrist

For centuries Yoga has been practiced and used as treatment by doctors in India to improve physical and mental well-being of their patients. Also in the West many people are begining to notice that Yoga helps, infact everyday there is more and more scientific evidence for its the positive effects treating people’s physical and psychological complaints. How is it possible that yoga helps with so many different health problems?

Yoga and stress

An important explanation lies in the effect of yoga on stress. In the past, most health problems were caused by pathogens such as viruses and bacteria. Nowadays, the medical world is so far that we can prevent this and stress is a major cause of health problems such as heart failure and depression.

Yoga can reduce stress; in a yoga class you train both the sympathetic nervous system (action system) and the parasympathetic nervous system (rest system) – two components of the stress mechanism in your body. With chronic stress, the sympathetic nervous system is overactive and your body does not have sufficient time to recover. Yoga helps to bring the system back into balance and can prevent stress-related illnesses.

Prevention is better than cure.

The latter is an important principle of yoga therapy: we are used to intervene when problems arise. In yoga you learn to listen to the signals from your body and to regularly consider how you are doing. This way you can notice in an early stadium when you are out of balance and prevent yourself from becoming sick due to psychological problems.

Yoga therapy therefore not only has an effect on physical processes, but also on your mindset. You learn to deal with your health in a conscious way and to take good care of yourself in the long term. Because that is the basis for a healthy body and mind!

Want to know more about yoga therapy?

Come to the yoga therapy workshop on the festival

If you want to delve into it thoroughly, the book that is used as a source is a must: The principles and practice of yoga in healthcare – Khalsa, Cohen, Telles & McCall

 yoga therapy