PUDUCHERRY: Battling depression and a sleeping disorder, Kalaiselvi, 28, had tried just about every kind of conventional treatment with little benefit. Till she found yoga. Within 12 days of starting her "integrated healthcare treatment" at Cyter (Centre for Yoga Therapy, Education and Research),she started sleeping without pills.

Kalaiselvi's case shows just how far yoga has come in its journey as the ultimate mind-and-body solution. Although it received acclaim when the West adopted its "exotic" appeal, yogahasundergone a transformation."Increasingly people approach us to battle lifestyle diseases like sinus, lower back pain and diabetes," said John Peters, a yoga teacher and jury member at the ongoing International Yoga Festival in Puducherry.

Yoga, for its newest converts, is as much a therapeutic solution as a fitness option. Part of that appeal has to do with the proliferation of Cyters that combine modern medicine with traditional solutions like yoga and ayurveda. "We have been successfully treating several patients particularly those with diabetes, hypertension, depression and sleeping disorders," said Ananda Balayogi Bhavanani, Cyter deputy director at Mahatma Gandhi Medical College cum Research Institute in Puducherry. "The integration of modern science with yoga and musictherapycan provide answers for chronic illnesses related to ageing, environment and improper lifestyle."

Yoga experts are trying to standarise this ancient form as a therapeutic module. "Yoga practitioners in Kerala have succeeded in treating ailments by integrating yoga with ayurveda," he said. "In Rishikesh, rejuvenation camps integrate yoga, ayurveda and naturopathy."

Yoga is not just about the physical regime; it's the overall package that helps detox the system. Satyabhama Rajagopalan from Chennai's Asana Andiappan Yoga ResearchCentre,said,"An American whocametolearn yoga initially struggled with the south Indian vegetarian food. After six months of yoga and no-meat meals,shefoundthather brittle nailswerein better shape. Shewastaken abackbecauseshewasn'tlooking for a solution to that." This therapeutic aspect has started gaining popularity in Europe.

As yoga has spread to other parts of the world, it has led to fusion forms. For instance, Vipassana meditation is the result of integration of yoga with the Buddhist tradition, said Bhavanani. Although yoga has many avatarsfrom hatha yoga to Bikram 'hot yoga' to ashtanga yogait's basic tenet remains unchanged. "Yoga is about the union of mind and body," said Rajagopalan. "The avatars are different formats researched and perfected by different gurus." Going international

Yoga has more takers in Hong Kong, Japan, Taiwan, Korea and Singapore than in its birthplace India, says Kancheepuram-born yoga instructor D SUDHAKAR who runs two yoga schools in Hong Kong and Japan. Sudhakar, who started learning yoga from Swami Chandramanda in Kerala at the age of 11, moved to Hong Kong four years ago. He established Vanakkam yoga school in 2011 and opened a branch in Japan.

"The yoga culture, both teaching and practicing, has changed due to influences from various countries. Our focus must be to revive the authentic yoga culture and preserve and popularise the ancient techniques. It is unfortunate that we Indians are yet to realize the significance of our tradition," Sudhakar, 32, said. His school offers several shortterm programmes. "Of late there is a surge in number of students enrolling for yoga therapy."

Life's a bed of nails

John peters is a local celebrity. And he has yoga to thank. The son of a security guard, Peters, 30, had to battle more than just his economic background. Severely disabled from his waist down, Peters' challenge was not to let his crutches come in the way of life. "Because of my disability I have always craved a challenge that would allow me to fight my condition and come up trumps," he said.

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Paired with ayurveda, allopathy, yoga gets a twist

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Yoga champion Emily Avery lifts herself up and readies to straighten her legs into the firefly pose during her training for the 2014 USA Yoga National Championship at Bikram Yoga in Portsmouth on Saturday.Ioanna Raptis/iraptis@seacoastonline.com

STRATHAM Crow. Peacock. Cat. Fish. Crocodile. Downward facing dog.

These are all members of Stratham resident Emily Avery's yoga menagerie. Each time she steps onto her mat, she employs all of them into an ancient spiritual practice.

But come March, Avery's animal ark will be working double duty as she represents New Hampshire in the 2014 USA Yoga National Championship.

"My favorite part about doing yoga is the fact that you can never be perfect at it," Avery said. "There's always something you can keep working on and that just means there's always a reason for me to come back to class."

Avery, a 2013 Exeter High School graduate, began practicing yoga in 2010 after her father recommended she try it.

"He came back and he said, 'Emily, this is so hard,' and he told me about the class, and it just sounded like a cool thing to try," Avery said. "So I just wanted to try it on a whim, and I went and it was really hard and I didn't expect yoga to ever be that difficult. So I kept going back and practicing, and now I go all the time."

Avery practices Bikram yoga, which is typically known as "hot yoga." The practice involves a set series of 26 postures, all performed in 90 minutes and in a heated room. The idea is the heat helps the person practicing be more flexible. When she started yoga, Avery was 16 and attended classes at a Bikram yoga studio in Portsmouth.

After six months of attending class regularly, Avery's yoga teacher approached her about possibly getting involved in regional and possibly national yoga competitions.

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Stratham's Emily Avery to compete for national yoga title

A belief in the literal Biblical version of creation may boil down, in part, to personality.

A new study suggests that people who believe in creationism are more likely to prefer to take in information via their senses versus via intuition. In contrast, religious believers who see the Bible's creation story as symbolic tend to be more intuitive.

"Intuitives tend to be much more at home with symbolic things, generally," said Andrew Village, the head of the theology and religious studies program at York St. John University in the United Kingdom.

Personality and religion

Village, an Anglican priest, is also a former scientist -- before he trained in the ministry, he studied the ecology of birds of prey. He applied that scientific sensibility in the new study, which surveyed 663 English churchgoers on their beliefs about Genesis, the book of the Bible that describes the Earth's creation. [The Top 10 Creation Stories]

The 150th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin in 2009 prompted great interest in beliefs about evolution and creationism, Village told LiveScience. Creationism is the belief that God created humans and animals in their current form, as described in Genesis. The most literal of these beliefs holds that God created the universe in six days.

Previous studies have suggested that personality influences whether people will become religious, and if they are religious, what tradition they will gravitate toward, Village said. He wanted to investigate how personality influenced beliefs about Genesis, specifically.

To do so, he included personality measurements in his survey, focusing on personality traits first proposed by psychologist Carl Jung in 1921 and made famous by the Myers-Briggs personality test. This test is meant to reveal people's preferences for collecting information and making decisions.

The Myers-Briggs breaks people into four dichotomies: extroversion versus introversion, sensing versus intuition, thinking versus feeling and judging versus perception.

Extroverts prefer the company of others, whereas introverts like to be on their own. Those who fit into the "sensing" category like to gather information in concrete, tangible ways, whereas the intuitive rely on abstract feelings and hunches. "Thinkers" make decisions via logical, detached judgments, whereas "feelers" focus on empathy and consensus-building.

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Creationist beliefs linked to personality type in new survey of churchgoers

6 Jan 2014 11:41

12-year-old Henry Gallagher must avoid a host of everyday foods because for him they are potential killers

A 12-year-old Coventry boy who has deadly allergies to eggs and dairy products has inspired an awareness-raising yoga-thon.

Henry Gallagher, from Cheylesmore, must avoid a host of everyday foods because for him they are potential killers.

He has a life-threatening allergy to the animal by-products, and even reacts to airborne particles from offending foods.

He is one of a growing number of people diagnosed with anaphylaxis, the most severe form of allergy, and for anaphylaxis sufferers a minor reaction can quickly turn deadly.

Anaphylactic shocks can also be triggered by foods like nuts, shellfish, kiwi fruit, sesame seeds and some drugs.

Henry must stick to a heavily-restricted dairy-free diet, and he and his family must scour every ingredients label before he takes a bite.

For some sufferers it can be socially excluding, with every outing needing to be planned with precision.

But thanks to the support of his family, medics and allergy charities, Henrys condition is well managed and he enjoys a full and active lifestyle.

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Yoga-thon for Cheylesmore boy who has deadly food allergies