Source: sify.com
NEPAL, March 28, 2010: Yoga has almost become a lifestyle trend among the urban middle class in this country, courtesy the Indian television channels which telecast holistic health and lifestyle programmes. Yoga CDs, VCDs and Indian health manuals are also easily available and sold at streetside book vends and leading bookstores.
The power of Indian yoga also has government endorsement in the country, which grapples with a high drug addiction rate and work-related stress.
Ratan Kumar Misra, an auditor at a firm in Kathmandu, practices an hour of Indian yoga and pranayam or breathing exercises every morning. Misra is among around 100,000 people in this country who have benefited from yoga and ayurveda as an alternative lifestyle and healing trend. For Misra, the simple routine of half-an-hour of breathing exercises or pranayam followed by asanas or yogic postures has kept his ‘high blood pressure in check’.