On the traditional road to fitness

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In an age when exercise is just a mobile application away, many health conscious teenagers are turning back to yoga for their daily dose of fitness. Not quite the exciting form of exercise, yoga has often been overlooked by teens as they don’t find it “cool” enough. So what prompts a comeback all of a sudden? So much so that even teen favourites such as the Nintendo Wii and the XBox these days include yoga in their fitness edition.
“Our school organised a yoga workshop at the start of the academic year where we were taught about holistic development. I used to go to the gym three times a week since Class 8. But nobody there taught about calmly dealing with pressure,” says Shachi Mehta, a student of St. Joseph’s High School. Providing further insight she says, “Mental peace is especially important in a year like Class 10 where expectations and frustrations are really high. I’m glad that I opted for yoga. It’s so relaxing and rejuvenating at the same time.”
One could argue that even running as an exercise helps give vent to frustration. But as Shachi points out, “The emphasis on breathing and silence that yoga provides is truly one of a kind, because it helps to deal with stress in a far more long-term manner.”
Ash Grover is another junior college teenager who completely banks on yoga to keep the mind and body fit. Ash’s uncle showed him the benefits of pranayam to help him focus on a nagging trigonometry problem. The initially skeptical teenager was amazed at the way it helped him concentrate. “When I told my friends in college they looked at me as if I was 90 and talking about fitness in the bygone era. That’s when I showed them how even the Wii has yoga application, which finally made them follow suit,” says a triumphant Grover.
Doctors believe that this trend is a good sign. “Teenagers these days are leading very difficult lives and I advise yoga to a lot of them. Yoga works on the body and the mind and the youth needs that now more than ever,” says Dr Sunil Godbole, a general physician.