A Study on Physiological Effect of Yoga Asana on Sleep

Abstract

Ahara, Nidra and Brahmcharya are the three main pillars of life. These play a vital role in maintenance of good health and longevity. Among these Ahara is responsible for physical, Brahmcharya for mental and Nidra for psychosomatic well-being. Mechanisation of world, advancement of science and technology has provided us a great range of comfort; this comfort has led to disturbances in normal Ritucharya and Dincharya. Increased use of various electronic gazettes such as laptop, mobiles, television has led to change in normal sleep cycle resulting sleep deprivation. Growing evidences suggests that these advancements take their toll on human functioning and health via their bad effects on sleep quality, quantity and timing. Chronic sleep deprivation may result in fatigue, muscle ache, day time sleepiness, clumsiness, weight loss or weight gain, memory lapses, depression, headaches, malaise etc.
In Ayurveda various modalities have been described to maintain proper sleep such as Abhyanga, Dincharya Palana, and Yoga Asana etc. Yoga Asana not only help to keep the body young, strong and supple but also incorporate mental activities, discipline that help to develop attention and concentration and thus stimulate the total mental and physical calmness and further improve the quality and quantity of sleep.
As disturbed sleep is quite common nowadays and performing Yoga Asana is supposed to play an important role in calmness of heart, mind and soul so hereby an emphasis is made to understand the role of Yoga Asana on physiology of sleep.

Keywords: Nidra, physiology, Yoga Asana, Dincharya

Cite this Article
Yadav S, Dadhich OP. A Study on Physiological Effect of Yoga Asana on Sleep. Research & Reviews: A Journal of Life Sciences. 2016; 6(3): 5–8p.