Chennai: A group of 11 people, all corporate heads above 45 years, are exposed to yoga for the first time at a workshop. Almost all complain of pain in the neck, back and the knee while performing asanas and while sitting on the floor for minutes together. Dr Krishna Raman, consultant physician, internal medicine, offers tips and changes in sitting position.
Yoga is now being widely used for healing purposes too. “People learn yoga to improve their health quotient. Most people can’t sit continuously for a long time and feel numb in the legs. It is so because we are not adapted to it. Yoga adapts you to a particular situation. We have to sit in a 90-degree position in our work – a bad posture.
When we sit properly, it gives energy to the mind,” Dr Raman, the medical specialist who combines internal medicine and yoga, explains at the workshop, asking participants to sit on butt bones and not on the tail bone. While sitting, shoulders have to drop down and if so, the neck is also relieved.Yoga is most often perceived as something for flexibility, breathing and spirituality and we do not appreciate it, says Dr Farzana Siraj, consultant therapeutic yoga, adding that hot and power yoga are a corruption of yoga. We have to sit and stand in a proper posture. Leaning forward is ageing and leaning backward is anti-ageing, says Dr Siraj.
Yoga instructors in the city say that awareness about yoga and its benefits has been increasing and many young people now prefer attending classes. Given the demand for yoga and naturopathy, the government yoga and naturopathy medical college in the city has increased the seats from 20 to 50 from this academic year. Dr R.S. Himeswari, chairman of the college, says that from the next academic year, they plan to start PG courses in naturopathy and yogic sciences. The only government yoga hospital sees 200 outpatients daily.
“Our students visit the Institute of Mental Health and teach yoga to mentally ill people. It’s not just pain alone that can be managed through yoga, even hypertension and diabetes, among others, can be managed with regular practice,” she says. At 58, K.G. Muralidharan, promoter of G.K. Industrial Park, wants to do yoga to improve his health. “My health deteriorates with age and I want to be fit. I have heard about various benefits of practising yoga and I want to practise it,” he says.
