This International Yoga day, beat stress and join the virtual challenges and ‘Yogacations’ from home

• With people staying inside homes in anxiety and stress — there’s more need for Yoga now than ever.
  
• This year, people won’t go to playgrounds to do Yoga rather celebrate Yoga day at home — virtually.
  
• Yoga can act as a stress management tool that we can do indoors by also adhering to stay at home policy, Dr Shuchin Bajaj, Founder and Director of Ujala Cygnus Healthcare.
  

Every year on June 21, millions of people around the world get together to celebrate International Yoga day. Until last year, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi celebrated the day with thousands of people at a public event. However, this Yoga day might be very different.

With people staying home and the building anxiety and stress due to lockdown — the need for Yoga now is more than ever.

This year, people might not do yoga in the open but will still celebrate the day at home — virtually. The theme for this year’s International Yoga Day is “Yoga at home and Yoga with family,”

"Due to the contagious nature of COVID-19, no mass gathering would be advisable this year. Hence, this year the ministry is encouraging people to practice yoga at their homes, with participation from the entire family," the AYUSH Ministry said in a statement.

Why Yoga?

For thousands of years now, yoga has been a private, personal practice. Whether it's the asanas or pranayama (meditation), all these things can very easily be done while at home.

“Yoga can act as a stress management tool that we can do indoors by also adhering to stay at home policy,” Dr Shuchin Bajaj, Founder and Director of Ujala Cygnus Healthcare.

Experts believe that staying indoors has been overwhelming for people across the world. According to media reports, there has been an increase in suicide cases in April and May.

“It has been seen that people who do yoga regularly are less susceptible to anxiety and depression. It also enables to improve compassion, gratitude, self-esteem and hope, which are the most-needed qualities now to fight the battle of the coronavirus pandemic,” Dr Bajaj said.

Participate virtually

According to Jitendra Chouksey — who is the founder of a fitness social network FITTR with over 8 lakh users — the best way people can celebrate this day is participate in numerous online initiatives and celebrations.

Popular fitness app Cure.fit is even organising a challenge of ten million Surya Namaskars over all. It's a day long-event with 170 live classes for yoga along with information sessions with experts and star trainers. FITTR is organising online sessions on FITTR App as well as their Facebook page.

ITC Rajputana Jaipur too has joined the drill and come up with “Yogacation”— under its brand initiative 'responsible luxury' — to provide three free digital Yoga sessions for all the people on this day. Some hospitals like Paras Hospital Gurugram and schools including VIBGYOR Schools are also providing Yoga sessions for patients and kids respectively.

Meanwhile, Tata Sky will be running a 48 Hour Yogathon on Tata Sky Fitness where certified practitioners and celebrity experts such as Deepika Mehta, Sunaina Rekhi, Amrit Daswani and stars such as Shilpa Shetty and Shraddha Das will be conducting sessions on June 21 and 22.

SEE ALSO: Mukesh Ambani says Reliance is net debt-free 9 months before the deadline – share price jumps