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Yoga Therapy: Meaning and Application

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Utkarsh Shukla

Yoga was traditionally meant for healthy, balanced people who were capable of pursuing what Abraham Maslow called B-values, not for sick or imbalanced people. Yoga is a tradition of psycho-spiritual evolution that leads to inner peace and liberation, not physical or psychological therapy, despite the fact that it does include a therapeutic component. However, yoga is now fairly generally practiced as a discipline for fitness and health in Western nations, and it has been shown to be quite successful in this regard. While the extensive methodology of yoga contains numerous methods for improving or restoring health and fitness, its true power resides in the area of psychospiritual maturity, particularly at the highest levels of self-transcendence and self-transformation via intense meditation.

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What is Yoga?

Yoga is the art of living and the science of life. It is the obvious solution for total mental and physical wellness. Fundamentally speaking, yoga is a long-practiced system of eventual freedom, physical self-improvement, and mental self-improvement. In the time of the Vedas and Upanishads, yoga first appeared. It is the oldest complete spiritual discipline in science in India. In order for a person to independently uncover the spiritual truths that ultimately support religion, beliefs, and moral ideals, yoga is a technique for training the mind and enhancing its capacity for subtle perceptions.

According to Swami Shivananda, "He who emits excellent, heavenly ideas causes great benefit to himself and to the world as well." Yoga is the science of life; it provides us with straightforward, cost-effective strategies for maintaining our physical and mental health. Yoga is the science of life.

One of the earliest metaphysical disciplines is yoga, which studies the essence of the soul and, through its practice, awakens the human superconscious mind and joins it with the eternal supreme spirit. In addition to promoting balance, yoga offers a philosophy and a religion. Both the individual and society may benefit from yoga. Yoga is a practical kind of mind-and-body training, not a group or an ideology.

What is Yoga Therapy?

The process of enabling people to advance toward better health and well-being by putting the principles and techniques of yoga to use is known as "yoga therapy."

Yoga therapy is essentially the use of yoga techniques to treat physical and mental health issues with the goal of fostering self-care and general well-being. While yoga as a whole attempt to grow the body and mind, which implies that it has the potential to have therapeutic effects, in yoga therapy we use certain yoga practices and their recognized advantages to assist in alleviating or healing mental and physical problems.

Swami Kuvalyananda, who felt it would be feasible to assess the physical and physiological changes that happened via yoga practice, first used the phrase "yoga therapy" in the 1920s. His enthusiasm inspired a magazine, a whole yoga institution, a new discipline, and international experts to visit India to investigate the effects of yoga. It was made feasible by Swami Kuvalyananda to begin relating the specific benefits of yoga to illnesses.

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This type of treatment uses yogic ideas and techniques to enhance both physical and mental health, including physical yoga poses, meditation, breathing exercises, and relaxation techniques. Yoga is an excellent kind of therapy for both psychological and psychosomatic issues. Yoga therapy, used in conjunction with other treatments, may help the condition after the disease reaches the somatic stage. Yoga therapy plays a more palliative, pain-relieving, and rehabilitative role during the organic period. In fact, yoga's main function is as a form of preventative medicine, guarding against future harm.

Some of The Therapeutic Modalities of Yoga Therapy

It includes −

Physical Therapies − Asanas, Kriyas, Mudras, and Bandhas help to increase mobility, flexibility, respiration, circulation, digestion, and elimination, as well as general health and well-being by gently stretching and strengthening muscles.

Emotional Therapies − The mind may be calmed and focused by the use of Swadyaya, Pranayama, Pratyahara, Dharana, Dhyana, and Bhajans, which can also assist in reducing stress and mental exhaustion and promoting emotional equilibrium.

Mental Therapies − Trataka, Pranayama, Pratyahara, Dharana, and Dhyana are techniques for relaxation and visualization. As the body's method of replenishing its cells and a means of reducing physical, emotional, and mental stress, relaxation is a key component of yoga treatment.

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Spiritual Therapies − Important components of yogic treatment, including swadyaya, satsangha, bhajan sessions, and yogic counselling, are sometimes disregarded in favor of only using physical therapies.

Pain Relief Therapies − Yoga is a helpful supplement to pain management therapy since it improves the quality of life and helps people tolerate pain better. It is reasonable to say that yoga helps us cope with ailments that it might not be able to treat.

Limitations of Yoga Therapy

Yoga and yoga therapy are excellent tools for achieving overall health, but they are not a panacea for every ill. In cases of emergency, it might not be helpful, and it is strongly advised to seek the advice of a licensed medical professional. Since every patient is unique, therapy must be customized to meet each person's needs rather than relying on a set therapy regimen for people with the same medical condition. The fact that various schools of yoga use diverse approaches to the same ailment is a very real concern.

Conclusion

There isn't a single cure-all for everything; similarly, yoga therapy is not a miracle cure for every type of physical and mental issues. But of course, its inclusiveness, effectiveness, and inclusion of maximum types of physical as well as mental issues, make it more reliable. Moreover, yoga therapy is also a science, it must be treated methodically and scientifically.

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