INTERNATIONAL YOGA DAY
INTRODUCTION:
International Yoga Day – Many of us have adopted a variety of methods to maintain good health, but yoga is a very lost of cost and easy way to take care of our health.
WHAT IS THE NAME OF THE INTERNATIONAL YOGA DAY 2020?
From March 23rd, 2020 our Honourable Prime minister declared lockdown all over the country for 21days, to protect from the virus named covid-19 by saying that, “ It is a Lakshmana Rekha for our safety to stay at home. So, on 21st June of 2020 International yoga day named with “ YOGA AT HOME AND YOGA WITH FAMILY”. It was also announced that the persons who are enthusiasts of fitness will be able to join the yoga day celebration virtually at 7 pm on June 21. Also due to the covid -19 outbreak, international yoga day was celebrated at home through different digital media all over the world. By sharing their yoga practice pictures and videos on social media like Instagram Twitter Facebook with the hashtag #Idoyogaathome, they celebrated INTERNATIONAL YOGA DAY at home with maintaining social distance.
WHICH DAY IS CELEBRATED AS AN INTERNATIONAL YOGA DAY?
Yoga is an ancient time exercise in India, for more than a thousand years. In recent times, in 2014, a resolution kept from the side of India that yoga should be accepted worldwide. Prime Minister Modiji suggested the date in his 2014 address at the UN general assembly and talks about the benefit of yoga and the UN general assembly accepted that. PM Modi had said, “Yoga is an invaluable gift from our ancient tradition. Yoga embodies the unity of mind and body, thought and action… a holistic approach (that) is valuable to our health and well-being. Yoga is not just about exercise; it is a way to discover the sense of oneness with yourself, the world, and nature.” Every year 21st June celebrated INTERNATIONAL YOGA DAY all over the world, it started in 2015.
WHY 21ST JUNE CELEBRATED AS YOGA DAY?
Minister Narendra Modi proposed his suggestion for celebrating Yoga day all over the world at his UN general assembly on September 27th, 2014’. The resolution proposed by India and out of 193 members of the UN general assembly 177 members support this proposal and from then INTERNATIONAL YOGA DAY celebrated on JUNE 21st. For the first time, International Yoga day was celebrated all over the world on 21st June 2015.
Celebrated on 21st June may be the reason that, that day is the longest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere, this day is also called as the summer solstice, and on that day the sun is out at most than other’s day.
WHAT IS THE IMPORTANCE OF INTERNATIONAL YOGA DAY?
Yoga is a way of living. It is a holistic approach to life. Yoga synchronized our body and mind together. Yoga is not just important for a fit and flexible body. They are also important in the form of a fit and flexible mind, that leads to a happy and healthy life.
Yoga is an ancient practice that connects with physical, mental, and spiritual and it’s completely originated in our country, India. Yoga is practiced in India for 5 thousand years. The word ‘yoga’ came from Sanskrit that means “to join or to unite, symbolizing the union of body and consciousness.”
Yoga is always important for our body-mind. Although we know Yoga practice for a long period Baba Ramdev is largely responsible for the practice of yoga in every home as it is now. The practice of yoga regulates blood, strengthens your muscles, and also it also purifies our internal system and organs, able to do asanas. Practicing yoga can generate energy in our body, we can convert that for being stable, find peace and calmness through meditation or dhyana.
In its ‘Common Yoga Protocol’ from 2019, the Ministry of Ayurveda, Yoga & Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy (AYUSH) lists “Yama, Niyama, Asana, Pranayama, Pratyahara, Dharana, Dhyana, Samadhi, Bandhas and Mudras, Satkarmas, Yuktahara, Mantra-Japa, Yukta-karma among popular yoga ‘sadhanas’.”
WHAT ARE THE 5 BENEFITS OF YOGA?
Everyone knows that Yoga is always a good exercise for the benefit of health that does burning calories, strengthening muscles, but doing yoga is also benefited for your body, mind, and spirituality for all ages people by its physical postures, breathing techniques, and meditation.
There are various benefit of doing yoga but here we talk about 5 major benefits.
- IMPROVE FLEXIBILITY, STRENGTH, BALANCING: Practising yoga on a daily basis can improve your flexibility that you can easily touch your toes or bending forward.
In yoga, if you keep your movements slow and deep breathing that increases blood flow and warm up muscles, and also helps in toning which prevents frequent straining of muscles. Some yoga postures can help preventing back and neck problems.
Yoga practice can also improve your balancing skill so that you can do easily more difficult asans.
- REDUCE LOW BACK PAIN, ARTHRITIS: If anyone practicing yoga regularly for several months that could be helpful in reducing their chronic low back pain. Regular yoga practice can give relief in the discomfort of tender, swollen joints that have to suffer from arthritis. For chronic low back pain, yoga can be recommended as a first-line treatment.
- REDUCES STRESS, ANXIETY: Yoga helps in improvement in breathing by its special technique called pranayama. By its deep breathing helps in relax almost instantly, which is good for reducing anxiety and since yoga strengthens our mind and body connection, and it helps in managing unpleasant emotions, give a positive thought due to the release of endorphins and reduced focus on ruminative thoughts.
It can be said that Yoga is a stress buster, regular practicing yoga has low levels of cortisol which is one of the keys stress hormones. It is noticed in many persons that if they practiced yoga continuously for 3 months through meditation, they feel relieved from stress.
- SLEEP BETTER: Regular yoga practice can relax muscles and improve blood flow that also reduces stress and for improvement of body and mind our sleep factor got better day by day.
Many people who have sleeping issues got relieved from doing yoga regularly, they fell for a long, quick, deep, and more relaxed sleep comparatively who are not doing yoga or not practicing regularly.
- HELP IN BLOOD SUGAR, HEART, LUNG FUNCTION: Studies show that yoga is healthier for and can be a simple way to keep your lungs fit and controlled blood sugar, cholesterol levels, and high blood pressure. Especially those people who are more than 40years of age controlled blood pressure and pulse rate from practicing yoga for a term of 4years.
Regular practicing yoga regulates blood to all parts of the body through flowing from the lower part to the heart and reduces body-wide, inflammation that contributes to a healthy heart.
There are a lot of yoga with breathing exercises that improve lung function, it can also be said that if anyone follows all these types of yoga for a long time then he can cure respiratory problems and increases the capacity of lungs.
Apart from these benefits regular practice of yoga can boost your energy level and helps in losing weight, increase self-esteem, and gain immunity.
WHAT ARE THE DISADVANTAGES OF YOGA?
Yoga is always considered one of the best and simple ways to improve your physical and mental health. There are a huge number of advantages of yoga but as everyone said, every pro comes with cons. There have some disadvantages to doing yoga.
- If you a beginner and not so much well educated about yoga then it can be harmful to you because doing yoga in a wrongful manner can increase the risk of injury.
- The excessive practice of yoga can give physical injuries, cramps in different body parts.
- Yoga is suitable for all people of all ages but that should be chosen wisely. Some yoga postures may harmful for old age peoples, for example; Bikram Yoga is very long yoga which is not suitable for all age groups.
- To see the good results of yoga, we have to wait for a long period and you have to do yoga regularly on daily basis with a particular routine and if any person stops doing practice yoga in a middle and start again after some days and not maintain continuity then it can cause bodily injury.
- There is a certain posture of yoga that may be harmful to people who have osteoporosis, because yoga may increase soft tissues and bone injury, and even muscle strains. Except this, the people who have neck, knee, hip, or back pain may injure and increased the pain.
- Although Hot Yoga is very famous for beginners, it may cause various illnesses such as dehydration and heat stroke and sometimes it may increase respiratory rates of the blood vessels, dilations, and damage to the brain, heart, lungs with high body temperature.
WHY DO I CRY AFTER YOGA?
Crying is one of the natural and healthy releases of a person. It is said that in western culture a good cry is actually healthy physically and emotionally. Practicing yoga releases a lot of emotions stress, anxiety, some hormones and opening body’s muscle, tissues, organs, deep-seated fears and sadness and our body become more aware of every knotted through stretching and bending. Many cultures believe that the mind and body called the soul are intrinsically linked.
So we can say that for exercising yoga people experience some releases that may be a little pent up or emotionally frozen and by exercising yoga that frozen emotions got unfreezes or unleash their feelings. When they take a deep breath in their yoga asanas they release that in a spiritual movement and that energy expresses itself in tears. Or it can be said like this, yoga can be physical activity but the poses and arsenous can bring our brain into a focused and neutral state that helps us to process anything which brothers us subconsciously but we are unable aur unveiling to access those directly, that’s why after yoga many persons cry.
IS 15 MINUTES OF YOGA A DAY ENOUGH?
Yoga is a bridge between our body and mind so 15 minutes of yoga is enough to activate our body and mind both and make our muscles flexible, boast energy to build a strong and healthy body as well as a healthy mind. It is important to remember that practicing yoga for 15 minutes, 30 minutes, or 1 hour is not important, it is important to be regular and consistent than 15 minutes practicing yoga every single day will definitely be work. 15 minutes or even 1-hour of practice once a month will not be able to give any benefit for you.
WHEN SHOULD YOU NOT DO YOGA?
While doing yoga everyone must follow certain rules and avoid few things for get benefit from yoga practice.
1. You should not do yoga after having your meal, you have to wait atleast 2 or 3 hours.
2. When you take bath you should not do yoga before or after 20 minutes.
3. Don’t drink coffee before or after a yoga
4. You should not do yoga in an unclean place or a place where smells like smoke or uncouth.
5. Don’t consume alcohol on use of drugs when doing yoga.
These are few situations when you should not do yoga.
WHO CAN NOT DO YOGA?
Although yoga is not restricted for anyone women or men or any age group for a stop there is some restriction must be followed for starting a yoga practice.
1. Kids below 5 years age should not do yoga without consultation with a doctor.
2. A person during the menstrual cycle or pregnancy can be restricted from doing yoga but after consulting a doctor with his permission she can.
3. Any person who suffered from fever weakness or illness cannot yoga.
4. Any person who had his or her surgery recent he or she cannot yoga.
5.A person who is in a condition of acute stress or in a state of exhaustion can not do yoga.
And there are some serious health issues in that cases without consultation with the doctor no person should be attained yoga session.
A person who is in a condition of acute stress or in a state of exhaustion can not do yoga.
IS IT OK TO TAKE A BATH AFTER YOGA?
It is OK to take a bath before yoga but not immediately before there should be at least 35 minutes gap between taking bath and yoga practice. Many yogis and yoga instructors recommend to take bath before yoga. It refreshes your body and minds internally and externally which helps you to concentrate on yoga and prevent injury.
Taking shower immediately before yoga is not recommended because certain yoga poses produce heat while others cool down your body and having an immediate shower of hot or cold water main describes the temperature of the body and making it tougher for the effects of yoga to take place. If you want to take bath after yoga doesn’t take straight after yoga wait for 20 minutes and if you want to take bath before yoga take it 20 minutes before a yoga session.
IS IT OK TO SLEEP AFTER YOGA?
Yoga does not only involve mindful practice but also involves mindful living. Yoga as a physical activity as well as mental activity and physical activity boosts your energy and increases your heart rate, blood circulation, so it’s quite possible to get tired after practicing difficult yoga aasan. So, it is OK to feel sleepy or take a nap after practicing yoga it’s not a cause of concern. If any person gets tired from lighter yoga asanas then it must be hydrogen for concern and he should check his health because it’s not normal.
Post yoga practice sleepiness is happened because of the body’s natural response when you sleep after yoga practice your pituitary gland releases growth hormones that need to repair and build tissue. Reduced physical fatigue. Increase mental orton’s by taking a short nap after yoga and can give you a boost of mental energy, and improve your sleep debt.
It is OK to sleep or taking a short nap after yoga but if you take a long nap you might befall for deep sleep and you will feel groggy and disoriented when you wake up, this feeling known as sleep inertia. Or, you may have face difficulties in sleep at night. So nap of sleep should be limited to 20 minutes for 25 minutes but not more than that so set an alarm for 20 to 25 minutes and wake up.
Article by – Ranita Banik
very good informative
Wow..its very helpful for those who are willing to start yoga daily basis.. Very informative and encouraging
Very insightful view on not why yoga international day but also why yoga is a must for people looking to live a healthy life and also the do’s and don’t of yoga was something I was completely unaware of. Thank you for this article.
Such a beautiful insight. Would love to read more.