On 21st June 2019, the fifth International Yoga Day was celebrated at Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences, Sevagram. Faculty, staff and students gathered at Kamla Desikan Lawn to derive the mental, spiritual, intellectual and physical benefits from the ancient tradition. Close to 75 people from different health profiles and age groups participated in the event.
Dr N Gangane (Dean, MGIMS) welcomed the gathering to celebrate the day. Dr BS Garg (Secretary, Kasturba Health Society) stressed on the importance and objectives of the event. “The aim of the day is to raise awareness among people about the many benefits of practicing yoga in their life on regular basis”, he said while addressing the participants.
Dr Ashish Gujar (Naturopathy and Yoga Therapist, Center of Alternate Medicine) led the yoga session and guided the participants through the various yog- asanas, and pranayams as per the Common Yoga Protocol given by the Ministry of Ayush. A specified sequence of yoga asanasa for 45 minutes followed by deep meditation was carried out. Another mass yoga demonstration was carried out at KRHTC, Anji. Around 50 participants from the community attended the session. Dr Arjun Kumar, Mr PV Bahulekar, Dr A Khandekar and Dr A Gujjar facilitated the event at Gram Panchayat Hall, Anji.
Earlier, a week of free Stress Buster Yoga Camp was held in the campus from 13thJune 2019. Daily morning and evening yoga sessions were hosted for staff and students at Maitri Bhawan, Arogyadham. More than 50 participants joined the camp. Dr Gujar demonstrated and conducted these sessions. During the camp, he also briefed about the benefits of different asana in different diseases, importance of change in lifestyle and diet, information about shatkarma, techniques like hasyasana amongst many other insights for the management of stress.
A guest lecture on Sahaj Yog was also arranged during this camp. Dr Ramesh Sontakke and Dr Hemant Deshpande along with their team introduced and guided the Sahaj Yog to the participants. “Yoga helps you sculpt your ideal body, free your true self and transform your life”, advises Dr OP Gupta, Emeritus Professor of Medicine and a staunch practitioner of Yoga and meditation.
“The Yoga Camp was designed with the purpose to highlight Yoga, Pranayama and Meditation as drugless system of medicine and as a Science of Holistic Living for promotion of positive health and prevention lifestyle diseases in young and old. It was to sensitize and motivate doctors in modern medicine to introduce healthy yoga lifestyle as intervention in management of Lifestyle diseases”, informed Dr A Khandekar, Joint Coordinator of Arogyadham (Center of Alternate Medicine).