World has achieved a tremendous growth with the advancement in science. Modern medicine is an offshoot of Modern science. Despite many great innovations made in curing and preventing some dreaded diseases people are not happy with the quality of treatment that is available today. Survey studies conducted in America and England have shown that 80 percent of patients are unsatisfied with treatment for those complaints presented to their doctors. They expressed that though the symptoms subsided with treatment a feeling of morbidity persist for long. Apart from this new diseases are emerging and some are reemerging. Scientists could not find appropriate remedies for many diseases. Need for alternative medical systems are badly demanded at this juncture. Clinical Yoga is a widely discussed therapeutic tool in this context. Major difference between Modern medicine and Yoga is that the Modern medicine is a matter based science whereas Yoga is a consciousness based science. Hence to have an in-depth understanding of Yoga and its therapeutic applications one has to transcend beyond the material boundaries.
Our concern of health is largely limited to physical well being. According to Yoga, physique or body is a manifested component of a complex system. It is analogous to a cinema performed in the screen. During the performance of cinema we are only aware of the artists on screen. In fact cinema is a collective effort of a group of people starting from light boy to the director. In a human being apart from the body there are Prana or energy, mind, intellect and soul existing invisibly. These different components are tangled each other. They are not compartmentalized components. They are manifestation of the same principle at different subtlety. They are mutually interrelated. A minute change in any of the component will have a repercussion in others. Hence when we think of health we should have a comprehensive awareness of all. It is a positive gesture that in 1945 at the time of formation of WHO the Allopathic medicine has agreed to include the mental and social aspect of well being in the definition of health deviating from the earlier stand that the health is merely an absence of disease. Allopathic medicine is yet to convince the spiritual component of health and incorporate in the definition officially.
Recent studies have shown that few cells live as long as the individual they belong to without renewal. A majority, if not all, the cells making up the cerebral cortex belong to this small group. The life span of some other human cells are as follows:
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