Learning To Relax - Yoga

Monday, 21 November 2011

Kashmiris are turning to alternate means for fitness and relaxation. Saima Bhat reports how some enthusiasts feel yoga is giving them a new lease on life; one deep breath at a time.

Sitting on a sea of blue and green exercise mats, a row of young and middle-aged women listen intently to their instructor, chant the name of God, and carefully release their breath.

“Allllaaaaaaaaah, breathe out and open your eyes,” Sumaira, a yoga instructor, utters calmly at the end of a meditation session.Sumaira’s yoga and meditation exercises are one amongst an increasing number of such classes that are being taught in Kashmir, and those who practice these say they have been helped significantly.

Anjum, 35, mother of two, would go to a gym regularly, as suggested by her doctor. She was a bit overweight before she started her gym routine, and after hours of workouts for the past year, she lost 4 kgs. However, she would come back home feeling drained. She now attends yoga classes in Kashmir, and feels more relaxed and rejuvenated. When she comes home, she says she is able to resume her usual routine. “That’s something which wasn’t possible after my exhausting sessions at the gym,” she says.

Anjum was distressed about her back pain, leg pain, irregular monthly cycles and hypertension. She happened to chance upon information regarding yoga classes in Barbarsha hand joined in the first week of September. She has been going regularly since. “I can’t tell you how relaxed I feel,” says Anjum. “I feel like all my problems have disappeared. My blood pressure is under control, and I don’t even take any medication now,” she says blissfully.

Anjum’s sister-in-law Afreen, 32, has been joining Anjum for the yoga classes. Afreen has four dislocated discs in her back, has migraine headaches, and hypertension. Initially, Afreen would get about four to five migraine attacks a week, despite being on medication. But now she has discontinued medication for both,her migraines and high blood pressure. “It has been a month now since my last migraine attack, and my back doesn’t bother me as much either,” Afreen says. “There was a time when I would be lying in bed for days at a stretch in pain. This is nothing less than magic for me.”

http://kashmirlife.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2092:learning-to-relax&catid=67:health&Itemid=209