Yoga is the oldest science of happiness. What the Indian yogis have been saying for thousands of years is now being endorsed by studies. Yoga improves the mood, sleep, anxiety levels, and thus brain health. In other words, yoga awakens in us streams of health, happiness, and productivity.
The Yoga Breakthrough
Neha Gothe, study author and director of the exercise psychology lab at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, says "a combination of the three core elements of yoga (asana, pranayama and meditation) seem to have an impact on the brain structure and function." She spoke about the duration of the practice and said that most people in the studies found a benefit after practicing yoga just once or twice a week, for 10 to 24 weeks.
Yoga strengthens those parts of the brain that play a key role in memory, attention, awareness, thought, and language. That is when decision-making, problem-solving, logical and emotional reasoning, communicating, learning, and analyzing happen naturally.
Let us see how different aspects of yoga work on our body, brain and energy.
Asana, the Seat of Productivity
Yoga has 8,400,000 postures. All these postures work on creating stability for the body. A stable body leads to a stable mind. Asanas compress the viscera and glands, stretch some parts of the body, apply load on muscles, to create physical and mental stability.
Most of the body’s serotonin is produced in the stomach. With a healthy gut, serotonin levels go up and thus the feel-good factor. A vibrant blood circulation suffused with endorphins, the pain-killing hormones, circulating in it, give greater mental alertness and energy.
The practice of breath synchronization with the posture, lowers the heart rate, activates the vagus nerve and the calming response associated with it. Asanas enhance the functioning of all the systems like the digestive, respiratory, cardiovascular, endocrine, and the nervous system. They build immunity, clear toxins, stress, and disease. They nourish the spine, which is the secret of agelessness.
Pranayama, A Life-Force to Supercharge the Mind & Body
Pranayama energizes, strengthens and refreshes the whole body with improved blood circulation and greater immunity. Regulation of breath has a profound impact on the mind as well. There is a relationship between breath and thought. If you stop one, the other stops.
A daily practice of pranayama expands the breath to eventually reach the remote, higher centers of the brain. These dormant centers, when activated, unlock a hidden potential of enormous creativity.
Pranayama activates the parasympathetic nervous system, which slows down the heart rate and calms one down. It also brings down the activity of the sympathetic nervous system and therefore the stress response. As pranayama teaches us how to take slower and deeper breaths, we begin to relax into life, and the aging process too slows down.
Pranayama revitalizes the brain cells and balances the vital neurotransmitters. The left and right hemispheres of the brain fall into sync, bringing logical thinking and creativity together.
Bandhas, Energetic Locks to Create & Generate
Bandhas are neuro-muscular locks applied on the body in strategic areas to regulate and balance the endocrine system and glandular secretions in the body. They are locks that are consciously applied to the body to unlock, unblock, and unleash the energy potential in a human being.
A bandha begins by activating muscle fibers in the body. The location of these activations is on the spine, at the root, abdomen and cervical. By engaging muscles in a pin-pointed and concentrated way along this path, the entire nervous system is stimulated, which refines the signals that are used to communicate information to the brain.
Since bandhas directly squeeze the glands, pituitary, pineal, thyroid, parathyroid, thymus, adrenal, pancreas, and gonads, the bio-rhythm of the brain undergoes a change. Profound relaxation is experienced and the respiration and heart rate is lowered. The pressure exerted in the abdomen revitalizes the digestive system while hormonal secretions harmonize the internal atmosphere of the body.
Mudras, Energy Circuits of Immense Possibilities
Mudras or gestures utilize the electromagnetic energy of the body, which usually gets dispersed, and channel it back to different parts of the body and brain. Thus, they revive brain pathways and create new ones.
The hands have the ability to potentially influence many parameters in the human system since sensory and motor cortices literally lie at the fingertips. When fingers and hands meet, they trigger cross-laterality. This activates both the hemispheres of the brain to work in union. The cooperation between both the right and left brain is essential to learn better, function more intelligently, and become more proficient in anything. Mudras also bring about greater sensory-motor integration.
Kriyas, Cleansing Techniques to Build Change
Kriyas are precise techniques that, when applied properly under expert guidance, create a powerful cleansing action on the human system. Their action penetrates to the inner tracts—respiratory and digestive—to draw out all the toxic waste. They also strengthen, and bring vitality to the body’s functioning and mental processes, while creating an inner awareness.
A build up of waste in the body, due to pollution, dust, smoking and alcohol, can increase blood toxicity. This toxic blood slows down the brain processes, disturbs the production of neurotransmitters, and gives rise to degenerative brain issues like memory loss, lack of focus, and clouded thoughts. Kriyas cleanse the whole system and maintain homeostasis. Their purification action gets rid of the toxins and habits accumulated in the brain in order to configure new neural connections.
Meditation to Transform the Brain Network
Meditation has been found to have profound effects on the brain. It is the only tool which can provide complete control over the mind, and therefore pain, anxiety, and depression. Research has found meditators experiencing heightened activity in the left prefrontal cortex. Greater left-sided activation ups happiness levels and immune response.
Meditation has an amazing variety of neurological benefits, from growing the size of the brain or the hippocampus—which is to do with our learning and emotions—to shrinking the amygdala, the part of the brain associated with fear and stress, to reduced activity in the "me" centers of the brain and increased emotional maturity, to enhanced connectivity between brain regions and rejuvenating an aging brain.
