Exercise usually involves quick and forceful body movements. It has repeated actions that often lead to exertion, tension, and fatigue.

Other endurance exercises are irritative.

For instance, medical experts claim that jogging stimulates the heart. In fact, though the heartbeat of the jogger increases, the heart is not stimulated in the yogic sense of being energized and invigorated.

Exercise can also be exhausting. Many forms of exercise require physical strength and endurance, and can lead to a feeling of fatigue after 1.0-15 minutes of practice. Many such exercises improve energy levels by boosting nerve function, but ultimately, this exhausts the cellular reserves and the endocrine glands. Cellular toxins increase, and though circulation is enhanced, it is at the cost of irritating the other body systems and increasing the pulse rate and blood pressure. Ultimately, the heart is taxed and overworked.

An athlete’s strong lung capacity is achieved by hard and forceful usage, which is not conducive to preserving the health of the lungs. Furthermore, ordinary physical exercise, such as jogging, tennis, or football, lends itself to repetitive injuries of the bones, joints, and ligaments.

Such forms of exercise work with — and for — the skeletal and muscular systems. They cannot penetrate beyond these limits.

Although all forms of exercise bring about a feeling of well-being, they also stress the body. In other forms of exercise, the movements are restricted to a part or parts. They are reflex actions, which do not involve the intelligence in their execution. There is little space for precision and perfection, without extra expenditure of energy.

Physically vigorous exercises cannot be performed easily because of stiffening joints and muscles that have lost tone. Isometric exercises, for example, cannot be practised with increasing age, as they lead to sprained muscles, painful joints, strained body systems, and the degeneration of organs.

Yoga asanas, on the other hand, involve movements that bring stability to the body, the senses, the mind, the intellect, the consciousness, and finally, to the conscience. The very essence of an asana is steady movement, a process that does not simply end, but finds fulfilment in tranquillity.

Yoga asanas are stimulative exercises

In yoga, back bends, for example, are more physically demanding than jogging, but the heart beats at a steady, rhythmic pace.

Asanas do not lead to breathlessness. When practising yoga, strength and power play separate roles to achieve a perfect balance in every part of the body as well as the mind. After such stimulating exercise, a sense of rejuvenation and a fresh surge of energy follow

But asanas penetrate each layer of the body and, ultimately, the consciousness itself. Yoga can you keep both the body and the mind relaxed, even as you stretch, extend, rotate, and flex your body.

Yoga, unlike other forms of exercise, keeps the nervous system elastic and capable of bearing stress. Yoga refreshes the body, while other systems exhaust it. Yoga involves the equal exertion of all parts of the body and does not overstrain any one part.

Yoga can be practised at any age with advancing age, the great advantage of yoga is that it can be practised by anyone, irrespective of age, sex, and physical condition. In fact, yoga is particularly beneficial in middle age and after. Yoga is a gift to older people when the recuperative power of the body is declining and resistance to illness is weakened. Yoga generates energy and does not dissipate it. With yoga one can look forward to a satisfying, healthier future, rather than reflecting on one’s youthful past. Unlike other exercises, yoga results in the concentration of immunity cells in areas affected by disease, and thus improves immunity. That is why the ancient sages called yoga a therapeutic as well as a preventive science.