Although the Science of Yoga is an ancient system with the primary objective of elevating the Human soul to a higher spiritual level, it has gradually become more physical in nature. As man became more extroverted and the complexity of human society increased, along with that came more complex human diseases. Humankind started to feel the impact of Stress as a result of an extreme materialistic life style. As a result, new and never-before-heard physical and mental ailments started to appear. To tackle this, medical science developed acute solutions for many such ailments but failed to provide holistic and more permanent solutions in dealing with these new problems. Thus, man again reverted to the ancient science of Yoga to understand the nature of this problem and found more effective solutions to some of these ailments in the science of Yoga. Thus yoga therapy became popular.
Hatha Yoga As Therapy
Although the main objective of yoga practice is spiritual in nature and was practised in this way for thousands of years in Indic civilisations, the application of Hatha yoga for therapeutic benefits has increasingly become popular in the last 100 years or so. In fact, growing interest by the medical community in Hatha yoga as a therapeutic science will certainly ensure its growth in this direction. Other aspects of Hatha yoga like pranayama (breathing practices) and kriya (cleansing techniques) are also becoming more accepted than before. For instance, an increasing number of studies has established pranayama as an effective technique to balance and calm the human mind.