YOGA FOR MENTAL HEALTH

Someone rightly said, "The key to a healthy life is a healthy mind." Having a healthy mind is just as important as having a healthy body!

- Shobhna K

While the comprehensive yoga system goes beyond all those fancy postures, extra sculpted & supple bodies, it's high time we allow Yoga to reach us for its more profound benefits for enhancing our overall well-being! Yoga is known to improve one's strength and flexibility. Still, it also enhances mental health by benefits in the form of improved mood, sharpened focus & concentration, relief from stress/anxiety and improvement in the symptoms of insomnia and depression.

Yoga practice can be understood under five main principles: Asanas, Pranayamas (Breathing exercises), Proper Diet, Positive thinking/ Meditation and Relaxation). But Breathing exercises and meditation mainly help to calm and centre the mind!

It is interesting to understand that regular Yoga practise helps reduce anxiety and depression but also helps make the brain work better and become sharper. Studies have used MRI scans and brain imaging technology to show that people who regularly practised Yoga had healthier brains and showed lesser shrinkage than the nonpractitioners.

Yoga and meditation help strengthen those parts of the brain that play a crucial role in memory, thinking, awareness and attention. Besides improving cognitive skills like learning and memory, there is improvement in reasoning, decision making, focusing, learning and reaction time. Also, Yoga stimulates the production of feel-good hormones (serotonin, dopamine and endorphins) for a longer-lasting duration than most other therapies.

Thankfully there is a rise in the awareness about mental health, and therapists, psychiatrists, psychologists and doctors, in general, are recommending the complimentary yoga practice. This has enabled people to embrace Yoga with an open heart and mind and elevate their life.

Yoga asanas for Mental Health: