I'm often asked "Can yoga help with the treatment of common ailments such as back-ache, blood-pressure, diabetes, obesity, asthma, cancer, irritable bowel syndrome, gastrointestinal disorders, and anxiety / neurosis? If so, how does yoga help in overcoming these disorders? "

According to yoga, which is holistic in its approach, man has five sheaths (or koshas). These are:

a) The Annamaya or the Gross body

b) The Pranamaya or the Pranic or the Aura / Etheric body

c) The Manomaya or the Mind / Body

d) The Vignyanamaya or the Intellect

e) The Anandamaya or the ultimate being.

So the yogic approach takes care of the five koshas and the treatment is not at just the body or physical level. Imagine if water is leaking at the third floor of your home and you recognize the leak on the ground floor. So you plug the leak on the ground floor. But this does not solve the problem as you would need to address the leak on the third floor. Hence yoga works at the whole body as a unit, not just addressing the symptoms.

The Yoga approach includes asanas (postures) and certain kriyas (techniques) for the gross body, pranayama for the pranic body, and meditation and relaxation for the mind-body because it calms down the mind and certain notional corrections at the levels of perception and the development of equanimity (or samatva.)

According to yoga, all diseases except traumatic injuries that are caused by accidents are caused by the mind. The psychogenesis is as follows:

a) Thoughts or the psychic phase wherein it starts as a thought/anxiety/stressful event. If we address this issue at the right time it will not manifest as a disease Yoga is very useful at this stage as it addresses the perception of stress.

b) Psychosomatic phase wherein there is a temporary fluctuation of many of the physiological parameters such as blood pressure, back-pain, acidity, irritable bowel syndrome etc. wherein there is scope to return back to normalcy over a period of time. Even at this stage if corrections are made and awareness is created and addressed the root cause of the problem, it will not manifest as a disease. Again yoga helps in the management of stress and making certain corrections at the levels of perceptions, and also cure is possible with yoga therapy.

c) Somatic phase wherein the problem settles down at the weakest organ, and manifests itself in a target organ specific to you (such as your back in the form of chronic backache or your stomach in the form of acidity or peptic ulcer or more generalized in the form of blood pressure or asthma. This stage is a stubborn and may require medical and complementary therapy such as yoga will work wonders, and it is possible that they may be weaned out of medication in a short period of time.

d) Organic phase wherein the target organ is damaged irreversibly , and only surgery such as in cancer, or there may not be any cure at all. In these cases, yoga can help alleviate symptoms, improve in the quality of life and prevent further recurrence or spread of the ailment and helps one to lead a quality life.

Our research and anecdotal evidence points to the fact that yoga is very useful in the first two phases (i.e. at the psychic phase and the psychosomatic phase.) Further, yoga also can be effective in the somatic phase.