With its emphasis on breathing practices and meditation—both of which help calm and centre the mind— it’s hardly surprising that yoga also brings mental benefits, such as reduced anxiety and depression. What may be more surprising is that it actually makes your brain work better.
When you lift weights, your muscles get stronger and bigger. When you do yoga, your brain cells develop new connections, and changes occur in brain structure as well as function, resulting in improved cognitive skills, such as learning and memory. Yoga strengthens parts of the brain that play a key role in memory, attention, awareness, thought, and language. Think of it as weightlifting for the brain.
Studies using MRI scans and other brain imaging technology have shown that people who regularly did yoga had a thicker cerebral cortex (the area of the brain responsible for information processing) and hippocampus (the area of the brain involved in learning and memory) compared with nonpractitioners. These areas of the brain typically shrink as you age, but the older yoga practitioners showed less shrinkage than those who did no yoga. This suggests that yoga may counteract age-related declines in memory and other cognitive skills.
Sister Margaret foundation is emphasising on Yoga & Meditation and the founder of SMF Shree Swaroop Bhattachrya is also a “YOGA GURU” and conducted several Yoga Camp in India & Abroad and moreover he is a Yoga teacher of Ordnance Factory Board ( OFB ), Ministry of Defence, Govt. of India for the last 8 years.
SMF is now engaged to start a “YOGA GRAM (YOGA VILLAGE)” in Purulia, West Bengal, India on 20 Bigha of Land to give proper treatment for the patients.& Training for the common people.