Yoga Being the Key to Modern Ailments
July 6, 2009
A little over 100 years ago, the average life expectancy in the developed world was about 40 years. Back then, few people gave thought to keeping physically fit, because life just wasn’t long enough to worry about it. Those who actually lived into their 70s, 80s, or 90s were thought of as miracles or as people so tough that nothing could kill them.
Much has changed in the 21st Century, mostly because of tremendous advances in science and medicine. Diseases that were once considered plagues have been wiped out by vaccinations and antibiotics.
Surgery often saves lives that would have been lost even 40 years ago. Because of these advances, life expectancy has nearly doubled.
This increased life expectancy has come at a cost. As people live longer, their lives become much more complex. Civilization has been humankind’s great boon, but also its worst bane.
Aside from the daily stresses of modern living, there are global problems, such as terrorism, nuclear proliferation, climate change and economic recession.
Individually, people in developed countries are bombarded every day by noise and bad news, schedules crammed with activity and lifestyles focused on over consumption.
One study in the United States recently noted that Americans are getting by on nearly 3 hours less of sleep each night as a result of trying to cope with the global recession. It seems as if every time science comes up with a new way to repair the human body, a new list of ailments emerges.
People no longer fear such scourges as polio, measles and smallpox, but instead heart disease has become America’s number-one killer.
Death in childbirth rarely happens in the developed world, but geriatric diseases and stress-related illnesses are mounting. Among the stress-related illnesses that now attack people of any age are allergies, asthma, arthritis and ulcers.
The world may be what it is, but each individual can do something positive to improve his or her ability to cope with it, and perhaps even surmount it. That something is an ancient-yet-modern lifestyle known as Yoga.
Yoga is often thought of as only a set of physical exercises, but in reality it is a discipline that integrates body, mind and spirit for greater physical fitness, mental acuity and spiritual peace.
Even with the threats of global catastrophe that humans face today, Yoga can provide its practitioners with ways to live well despite the stresses of age – and perhaps even do something to conquer them.
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