Managing the detrimental factors of aging through <i>Yoga</i>

Abstract

<i>Yoga</i> helps in slowing down the aging process, by maintain the body weight, providing elasticity to the spine, firming up the skin, removing tension from the mind, strengthening the abdominal muscles, improving the quality of loose arm muscles, correcting poor posture and so on. Thus, of the numerous benefits of <i>Yoga</i>, anti-ageing is an important one. With this background the present study aims to find the effect of <i>Yogic</i> intervention on physiological and psychological parameters in aged people. For that 100 person age range 50-65 years were selected through purposive sampling from Haridwar-Dehradun districts of Uttarakhand. They were again randomly divided into two parts in experimental and control group. Experimental group were introduced the <i>Yogic</i> intervention for a period of 60 days and the control group were doing their own scheduled work. Pre-post data were taken for both the experimental and control group and further analyzed statistically. Significant changes were seen in the body weight; cholesterol and stress level in the experimental group, whereas no as such change has been seen into the control group. Study suggests that the some of the detrimental factors of aging in the form of body weight, blood cholesterol and stress level can be managed through a regular <i>Yogic</i> practice.