The Healing Aspects of Yoga

Abstract

Learning about how certain cultures treat illness and how they differ from our common treatments is intriguing. Particular health problems are often treated with a particular remedy. Yoga appears to attack all kinds of ailments in the body and mind. Does yoga work? How is it that a certain approach can treat so many different problems? If this is the case, why isn't yoga universally applied? Why are some skeptical? The author looks at various sources and studies in addition to some first-hand experience to explain the distinct practice that is yoga and to dispel skepticism. An advantage to an examination of this sort is that it enables one to understand a more fundamental relationship, one between distinct cultures. Well aware of the basics of our current healing tradition, more specifically that of modem biomedicine, studying yoga allows the 'outsider' a foot in the door, so to speak, into the intricacies of the healing systems and philosophies of Eastern tradition. While it becomes clear that these cultures are, in fact, different in their views of healing, there do exist some similarities. The methods to achieve physical health and well-being may differ, but the goal is and should be the same. Often we hear the quote, 'At least you have your health,' and those who are healthy often pay little attention to this. Heal this something that has been taken for granted, but those who are not fortunate enough to be healthy will tell you how very important it is. The point in life is to be happy, and being ill, physically or mentally, almost automatically rids one of that fundamental right. As the philosophy of health and well-being of the East assembles in the West, many, and more specifically traditionalists, ask,' Is this a good thing?' As we look at yoga, we begin to construct an answer as well as entertain the possibility of integration