Yoga Sanskrit: योग; Sanskrit for “yoking” or “union”, is a group of physical, mental, and spiritual practices or disciplines that originated in ancient India. Yoga is one of the six orthodox philosophical schools of Hinduism. There are a broad variety of yoga schools, practices, and goals in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism and there are four paths or types of yoga: Karma yoga, Kriya yoga, Bhakti yoga, and Jnana yoga. Research studies have shown that traditional yoga systems that include breathing exercises and asanas or postures, chants, and meditation can reduce stress and improve immunity and lung functions. Traditional forms and modern methods of yoga are practiced worldwide.

The practice of yoga has been thought to date back to pre-vedic Indian traditions, possibly in the Indus valley civilization around 3000 BCE. Yoga is mentioned in the Rigveda, and also referenced in the Upanishads, though it most likely developed as a systematic study around the 5th and 6th centuries BCE, in ancient India’s ascetic and Śramaṇa movements.

The chronology of earliest texts describing yoga practices is unclear, varyingly credited to the Upanishads. The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali date from the 2nd century BCE, and gained prominence in the West in the 20th century after being first introduced by Swami Vivekananda. Hatha yoga texts began to emerge sometime between the 9th and 11th century with origins in tantra.

Yoga gurus from India introduced yoga to the West following the success of Vivekananda’s adaptation of yoga without asanas in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The term “yoga” in the Western world often denotes a modern form of hatha yoga and yoga as exercise, consisting largely of the asanas. Outside India, it has developed into a posture-based physical fitness, stress-relief and relaxation technique. Traditional yoga, however, includes physical exercise, meditation, and spirituality. Yoga has its own epistemological method, which assumes the ontology and metaphysics of the closely correlated Samkhya darsana.

In this today’s world it’s so difficult to spend our time and go to gym and take a diet and etc etc. But yoga is formed to pe in a peace of mind where we are not just physically but we are mentally fit too.