In the Indian newspaper ‘The Hindu’ I was surprised and thrilled to see an article that Yoga will be taught compulsorily to all School Children in India. This remark came from the Union Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss. This is part of the national school health program. I only hope they make it fun and exciting for the children and not rote that they end up disliking. I have been teaching Yoga to children and if you get them going in the right direction, they have a blast with it.

I hope under Barak Obama, in the US we incorporate the elements of food, health, and exercise (particularly yoga) into the regular school or after school program.

Yoga for Children
In recent years, a number of organizations have been working on incorporating yoga, and mindfulness in schools. Two of them that I have looked into are Yoga Calm and Inner Kids. Yoga Calm relies on Yoga techniques to help children with Attention Deficit Disorder and other challenges. Inner Kids teaches mindfulness and encouraging them to look within.

Yoga in India
During my recent trips to India, I had the opportunity to practice Yoga in a couple of different places. In Bangalore while accompanying my dad for a walk I noticed a small Yoga studio. I went inside and talked to the teacher to see if I could practice with them for that week. It cost me 500Rs  (about 10 dollars) for 5 classes. I noticed several differences between the US classes and this. For starters there were many more men than women (it is reverse in the US). There was an emphasis on movement and incorporating prana yama to make it richer. On the flip side, the emphasis on rote repetitions made it less interesting after just a week.

I then had an opportunity to practice on my own at the temple town in Srirangam. It is a majestic temple and I was pleased to be able to practice sun salutions and meditation at the Kambar Mandapam the site where the great Tamil poet Kambar is supposed to have recited his Kamba Ramayanam poetry.

Yoga and Religion

Although Yoga originated from India from the Hindu Religion, Yoga is very secular and people from any faith can practice it. The Yogi’s discovered it as a way to enhance. There is growing scientific evidence as well as blending of yoga principles into a variety of different systems.

 I began to be aware that several of the Hindu rituals have aspects of Yoga integrated into them.  One of them is the Sacred Thread Ceremony that Brahmin boys have. The core Pranayama and Dhyana of Yoga has been incorporated into a daily ritual that is practiced to this day. It has however become a ritual and the breath aspects of Yoga are not well practiced even though that was the intent of the founders.

Breathing and Health

I was teaching some breathing techniques in my Yoga class. One of my students wanted to know how it helps us. Let me explain.
The human autonomous nervous system is divided into Sympathetic and the Parasympathetic Systems. In layman's terms, the sympathetic system is the responsible for the "flight or figh" response and the parasympathetic system is responsible for the 'rest and being' response.

Deep breathing helps us by increasing the response of the parasympathetic system. In our modern life the sympathetic system is overexcited and we al constantly in a 'doing' phase. With deep breathing (such as belly breathing, alternate nostril breathing etc) the parasympathetic system takes over.

There is also evidence to suggest that the stress hormes and cholestrol decreases with regular deep breathing.

Yoga has a systematic treatment of breathing refered to as 'Pranayama'. Prana is the life force. In Chinese it is called Qi. The Chinese system of 'Qi Gong' emphasizes deep breathing as well.

Yoga Medical Research

There is a growing body of medical research on Yoga. One of the aspects of Yoga is around Meditation. Richard Davidson http://videos.med.wisc.edu/videoInfo.php?videoid=936  has some interesting scientific evidence. Jon Kabat Zinn's research demonstrates the impact of meditation on psoriasis treatment.