What is yoga?
Yoga is an ancient physical and spiritual discipline and branch of philosophy that originated in India reportedly more than 5,000 years ago. The word yoga comes from the Sanskrit word yuj, which means to yoke, join, or unite. The Iyengar school of yoga defines yuj as the "joining or integrating of all aspects of the individual—body with mind and mind with soul—to achieve a happy, balanced and useful life." The ultimate aim of yoga, they claim, is to reach kaivalya (emancipation or ultimate freedom).
Yoga is an ancient system of relaxation, exercise and healing with origins in Indian philosophy. Yoga has been described as "the union of mind, body, and spirit," which addresses physical, mental, intellectual, emotional and spiritual dimensions toward an overall harmonious state of being. The philosophy of yoga is sometimes pictured as a tree with eight branches:
• Pranayama (breathing exercises) • Asana (physical postures) • Yama (moral behavior) • Niyama (healthy habit) • Dharana (concentration) • Pratyahara (sense withdrawal) • Dhyana (contemplation) • Samadhi (higher consciousness)
There are several types of yoga, including hatha yoga, karma yoga, bhakti yoga and raja yoga. These types vary in the proportions of the eight branches. In the United States and Europe, hatha yoga is commonly practiced, including pranayama and asana.
Yoga is often practiced by healthy individuals with the aim to achieve relaxation, fitness and a healthy lifestyle. Yoga may be practiced alone, or with a group. Yoga classes and video tapes are available. There are no official or well-accepted licensing requirements for yoga practitioners.
Many people think that yoga is just stretching. But while stretching is certainly involved, yoga is really about creating balance in the body through developing both strength and flexibility. This is done through the performance of poses or postures, each of which has specific physical benefits. The poses can be done quickly in succession, creating heat in the body through movement (vinyasa-style yoga) or more slowly to increase stamina and perfect the alignment of the pose. The poses are a constant, but the approach to them varies depending on the tradition in which the teacher has trained.

How will you benefit from yoga?
The main benefits of yoga are:
• Stretches and tones all muscles and joints • Strengthens bones • Improves breathing rate and heart rate • Increases stamina and energy level • Improves concentra¬tion • Cleanses the glandular system of toxins • Lifts depression and anxiety • Speeds metabolic rate for weight maintenance • Reduction of stress • Lower back pain relief • Improved flexibility • Better posture • Improved circulation • Better digestion • Weight loss • A stronger immune system
In addition, research has shown that yoga helps manage or improve a wide range of conditions including:•
• Arthritis • asthma • high blood pressure • carpal tunnel syndrome • chronic fatigue • depression • diabetes • headaches • heart disease.
The most important benefit of yoga is physical and mental therapy.
Physical Benefits
Flexibility: Stretching your tight body in new ways will help it to become more flexible, bringing greater range of motion to muscles and joints. Over time, you can expect to gain flexibility in your hamstrings, back, shoulders, and hips.
Strength: Many yoga poses require you to support the weight of your own body in new ways, including balancing on one leg (such as in Tree Pose) or supporting yourself with your arms (such as in Downward Facing Dog). Some exercises require you to move slowly in and out of poses, which also increases strength.
Muscle tone: As a by-product of getting stronger, you can expect to see increased muscle tone. Yoga helps shape long, lean muscles.
Pain Prevention: Increased flexibility and strength can help prevent the causes of some types of back pain. Many people who suffer from back pain spend a lot of time sitting at a computer or driving a car. That can cause tightness and spinal compression, which you can begin to address with yoga. Yoga also improves your alignment, both in and out of class, which helps prevent many other types of pain.
Better Breathing: Most of us breathe very shallowly into the lungs and don't give much thought to how we breathe. Yoga breathing exercises, called Pranayama, focus the attention on the breath and teach us how to better use our lungs, which benefits the entire body. Certain types of breath can also help clear the nasal passages and even calm the central nervous system, which has both physical and mental benefits.
Mental Benefits
Mental Calmness: Yoga asana practice is intensely physical. Concentrating so intently on what your body is doing has the effect of bringing a calmness to the mind. Yoga also introduces you to meditation techniques, such as watching how you breathe and disengagement from your thoughts, which help calm the mind.
Stress Reduction: Physical activity is good for relieving stress, and this is particularly true of yoga. Because of the concentration required, your daily troubles, both large and small, seem to melt away during the time you are doing yoga. This provides a much-needed break from your stressors, as well as helping put things into perspective. The emphasis yoga places on being in the moment can also help relieve stress, as you learn not to dwell on past events or anticipate the future. You will leave a yoga class feeling less stressed than when you started. Read more about yoga for stress management here.
Body Awareness: Doing yoga will give you an increased awareness of your own body. You are often called upon to make small, subtle movements to improve your alignment. Over time, this will increase your level of comfort in your own body. This can lead to improved posture and greater self-confidence.

What are the uses of yoga?
Yoga is useful in getting rid of the stiffness on the body by improving flexibility through the movements of the various asanas specific to muscles and joints. Due to daily practice and performance, an individual will be able to gain flexibility in every part of the body and renewed vigor.
Most importantly, yoga is extremely useful and instrumental in warding off various kinds of disorders at a number of aches and pains. Most people who suffer from back pain, pain in the shoulders, crick in the neck, headaches and overall body pain find much relief in the various movements of yoga. Another vital constituent in the practice of yoga is the emphasis of breathing aka Pranayama. Most people have shallow breath patterns, which are the primary cause of most disorders. Pranayama aims to correct, modulate and heighten the practice of breathing in order to achieve maximum results. Through the practice of Pranayama one learns to focus the attention on the breathing pattern and to use the lungs in a more beneficial manner that will prove advantageous for the entire body. Certain types of breathing techniques and Pranayama helps to clear the nostrils and the nasal passages, and even go so far in soothing the central nervous system in order to benefit the body and mind.
According to medical scientists, yoga therapy is successful because of the balance created in the nervous and endocrine systems which directly influences all the other systems and organs of the body. Yoga acts both as a curative and preventive therapy. The very essence of yoga lies in attaining mental peace, improved concentration powers, a relaxed state of living and harmony in relationships.
Through the practice of yoga, we become aware of the interconnectedness between our emotional, mental and physical levels. Gradually this awareness leads to an understanding of the more subtle areas of existence. The ultimate goal of yoga is to make it possible for you to be able to fuse together the gross material (annamaya), physical (pranamaya), mental (manomaya), intellectual (vijnanamaya) and spiritual (anandamaya) levels within your being.