HYPERTENSION & BENEFITS of YOGA

Hypertension in any form is a serious disease. Even a mild hypertension lowers the life span and decrease the quality of the remaining years. 80% of hypertension is essential hypertension which has no medical cause. Rest 20% is caused by either medical or surgical causes. Essential hypertension is reversible but not only by medical treatment but the combination and balance of medicine and yoga.

In hypertension the body cannot adopt to the needs of its internal and external environment. The blood can not supply oxygen needs and at the same time it cannot pick up the waste material produced, resulting in fatigue and exhaustion. It takes a great deal of rest to undo the damage caused by this spam. Recent scientific research has proved that the sort of rest required can not be gained even through sleep but only through meditation.

The normal way to handle stressful situations is to accept the situation as it is in relaxed and positive frame of mind. This occurs if we are aware that nothing can be achieved by undue worry. A meditative attitude towards the world allows us to control the adrenaline release and the sympathetic over stimulation that accompanies most kind of stressful situations.

Hypertension has several specific causes. It appears that a combination of these is responsible for the increased incidence in high blood pressure over the last decade. These causes include heredity, age, smoking, high fat diet, sedentary lifestyle, personality, temperament and emotions.

According to yoga the mind is the most important component in the cause of hypertension. The mind and body are one. They are not merely linked but reflect each other. What we are seeing in the physical plane as hypertension is reflected from the mental levels into the brain and into the body. Every person has some neurotic tendencies or mental problems which causes unhappiness, tension, depression, anxiety to one degree or another. Mental weakness cause ill health & difficult interpersonal relationship. When we are subjected to a polluted atmosphere and the fast pace of modern society, mental, emotional and physical tensions build up. If we allow tensions to build up within the mind through lack of awareness, these 1st cause mental problems such as depression, anxiety and fear and thus we suffer.

Yoga aims to remove through a system of pose ( asanas), breathing ( pranayamas) & meditation along with a complete reappraisal of lifestyle. Yoga helps to build up physical resistance, emotional harmony and panic balance through the eradication of the root cause in the mind. Asanas and pranayamas help in this process of self healing. In this way you also gain the satisfaction of knowing that you can achieve what may have once appeared to be impossible – the cure of hypertension.