International Yoga day Observed at SMVDU- An expert Lecture by Prof. Rima Dada, AIIMS New Delhi
Board of cultural activities (BCA) in collaboration with The NSS unit of SMVDU celebrated the international Yoga Day. The lecture on Yoga was given by Prof. Rima Dada of AIIMS, New Delhi. The lecture was taken in Hybrid mode and students attended the same through online mode. Great number of students attended the session. The session started with a welcome address by Dr. Poonam, Cultural Coordinator and Dr. Rajiv Kumar, NSS Program Coordinator. Prof. Rima discussed how Yoga helps to reduce the burden of present day lifestyle stress on our health.
She started by giving a brief overview on yoga and talked about the eight rungs or limbs of yoga, which include yama, niyama, asana, pranayama, pratyahara, dharana, dhyana, and samadhi. Intense practice of these leads to self-realization, which is the primary goal of yoga. She emphasised that Yoga has been the subject of research in the past few decades for therapeutic purposes for modern epidemic diseases like mental stress, obesity, diabetes, hypertension, coronary heart disease, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
Individual studies report beneficial effect of yoga in these conditions, indicating that it can be used as non pharmaceutical measure or complement to drug therapy for treatment of these conditions. However, these studies have used only yoga asana, pranayama, and/ or short periods of meditation for therapeutic purposes. She talked a great deal about the positive effect of Yoga on modern health problems like sperm damage, PCOS, inflammatory diseases, and harmonal imbalance. She emphasised that Yoga can aid an individual at grass root level.
The modern lifestyle, which is sedentary and involves unhealthy food habits has caused chemical changes to DNA. These epigenetic modifications can be reversed with the help of yoga. The lecture was followed by question and answer sessions which was as insightful as the lecture itself. The online session ended with a vote of thanks by Dr Poonam. Dr. Rakesh Kumar and Dr. Rahul Sharma interacted with speaker and discussed the initiatives of Govt of India regarding the promotion and awareness of Yoga in India. They thanked Vice Chancellor, Prof. Pragati Kumar for supporting such initiatives in University campus.
