Stop popping pills, do yoga

Chennai: As the world is set to celebrate Yoga Day on Wednesday with many people participating in the celebrations across the state, doctors say that it should not remain a one-day affair; the exercises should be included in the everyday schedule of people for the betterment of physical and mental health.

Doctors emphasize that conventional medicine must recognize that natural therapies are a fundamental healing for all sorts of ailments. "Yoga is found helpful for various ailments including stress, chronic diseases, depression, abdominal pain and even cancer. It relaxes all the joints and muscles," says Dr A. Shanti, member of the Doctor's Association for Social Welfare, said.

Government is initiating steps to include yoga for the treatment of patients in government hospitals in the city, especially for pregnant women. New yoga units have been started in Theni and Thiruvannamalai, and are planned in Chennai too. "Yoga helps in the flexibility of the pelvic muscles and reduces the risk of hypertension, stress and diabetes in pregnant women. It also increases the chances of a normal delivery. We are hopeful of good results with yoga," says Dr P Vasanthamani, Dean of Kilpauk Medical Hospital.

Dr Vijay Anand, psychologist at Apollo Hospital, says, "Yoga is a boon to overcome stress and depression, involving body, mind and spirit. We have many people who have been profited due to yoga."

As per research conducted by the American College of Physicians on 850 cancer patients, it was found that yoga helped them to cope with the ill effects of cancer also. "Yoga along with medication and diet is an overall therapy for cancer patients. It helps secrete hormones that are good for patients, increasing the immunity of the body," says Dr Anitha Ramesh, senior oncologist at Apollo Specialty Hospital.

New app Yogamplify launched

Ahead of the International Yoga Day that is observed on June 21, Esri India, Geographic Information System (GIS) software and solutions provider,  announced the official launch of the Yogamplify app.

Through this platform, organizers who are hosting events pertaining to yoga can share details of venue, time, agenda, chief guest and capacity.

The creators of this app will, in turn, place such information on an interactive map.

Yoga enthusiasts can view yoga events that are being hosted in their vicinity on the map and this app also helps users by guiding them how to get there. Yoga practitioners and enthusiasts can share details of events with their contacts through social media directly from the app to promote the event thus, inspire more people to be a part of International Yoga Day celebrations.

Commenting on the initiative, Agendra Kumar, President, Esri India, said, “International Yoga Day is a global event that promotes yoga for healthy living. Yogamplify is our contribution to support this vision through an innovative application that demonstrates the simplicity and accessibility of the GIS technology.”

Yogamplify makes use of Esri’s Cloud known as ArcGIS Online. This app can be downloaded from the Google Play store.