Through yoga practices I have experienced a great improvement in joint movement breathing capacity, digestion and evacuation. Moola bandha and shashankasana have relieved extreme depression; pranayama and yoga nidra have helped me to become more flexible and able to adapt to stressful situations.
Yoga has helped me to conquer nervous tension due to medical and emotional problems. Recently, when I nearly lost my son, yogic breathing techniques helped me through the extremely critical periods when he was unconscious and not expected to live.
Yoga is a great help to me in my daily life, enabling me to channel my energy more effectively. I have come to understand and enjoy the challenge of attempting to perfect the physical exercises. Even a few minutes of complete concentration on one or two postures or breathing exercises relieves tension and gives me a feeling of physical and mental well-being. I am learning to carry this practice of concentration into my daily life, to do a job with single mindedness, without wondering about the next task or thinking about the last. Through yoga I am learning to conserve and renew my energy and am now able to fit more activities into my week. I find that the practice of relaxation is the one which has been of most benefit to me. To retreat from thoughts of things, people and self, to watch the body and mind become still become nothing, to go 'far into the void and rest there in quietness' brings renewal and acceptance, peace and contentment. For me, that is what yoga is all about.