Yoga offers effective solutions at a time of stress & anxiety

The unabated enthusiasm that is building up around International Day of Yoga (IDY) 2021 is both heartening and rare, at the same time. This is rare because it will be the second year in a row when there will be no major outdoor activity or mass congregation for IDY around the globe due to the pandemic, and yet people in large numbers are embracing Yoga from the quietude of their homes.

Over the last six years of observation of IDY, Yoga has emerged as a significant public health movement across the world. This has been particularly true in India, where the role being assigned to Yoga in the policy and practice of public health has significantly grown.

The ministry of AYUSH and ministry of youth affairs and sports recently came together to grant formal recognition to yogasana as a competitive sport. Yogasana represents the physical dimension of yoga, and is amenable to the format of a competitive sport. Thanks to its basic strengths, yogasana has the potential to emerge into a global sporting discipline. This will ensure new technologies and new strategies being inducted into the discipline. Our athletes and officials will be able to build fruitful and fulfilling careers in this field.


Yoga not only improves overall health and immunity but also contributes to a quicker recovery of patients from diseases. In the current scenario where large sections of the population are enduring stress and anxiety related challenges due to Covid-19, Yoga offers effective solutio- ns. Thus, in these troubled ti- mes when wellness is a goal for all of us, "Yoga for Wellness" becomes an appropriate and natural theme for IDY-2021.

(The writer is Union minister for youth affairs and sports and also holds charge of the Ayush ministry )