NEW YORK (TIP): Yoga has emerged among the top 10 fitness trends worldwide for 2018, according to “Worldwide Survey of Fitness Trends for 2018” by American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM).

“The sustained popularity of yoga seems to be that it reinvents and refreshes itself every year making it an attractive form of exercise”, Survey points out. “Based on ancient tradition, yoga utilizes a series of specific bodily postures practiced for health and relaxation. This includes Power Yoga, Yogalates, Bikram, Ashtanga, Vinyasa, Kripalu, Anurara, Kundalini, Sivananda and others”, ACSM release adds.

It reportedly surveyed over 4,000 fitness professionals from Mexico, Chile, Columbia, Venezuela, Portugal, Argentina, Ecuador, Brazil, Serbia, Japan, United Arab Emirates, Australia, United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, India, Italy, Taiwan, Switzerland, Jamaica, South Africa, Bermuda, Greece, Ireland, Finland, Kenya, New Zealand, China, Barbados, Romania, Singapore, South Korea, Israel, Lebanon, Egypt, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, Spain, Sweden, and the United States. Now in its twelfth year, this Survey provides 40 potential trends to choose from and claims to help the health and fitness industry make critical programming and business decisions.

Meanwhile, Hindu statesman Rajan Zed, in a statement said that Hindus were highly pleased with the fast and tremendous growth of yoga worldwide.

Yoga, referred as “a living fossil”, was a mental and physical discipline, for everybody to share and benefit from, whose traces went back to around 2,000 BCE to Indus Valley civilization, Zed, who is President of Universal Society of Hinduism, noted.

Rajan Zed further said that yoga, although introduced and nourished by Hinduism, was a world heritage and liberation powerhouse to be utilized by all. According to Patanjali who codified it in Yoga Sutra, yoga was a methodical effort to attain perfection, through the control of the different elements of human nature, physical and psychical.

According to US National Institutes of Health, yoga may help one to feel more relaxed, be more flexible, improve posture, breathe deeply, and get rid of stress. According to a “2016 Yoga in America Study”, about 37 million Americans (which included many celebrities) now practice yoga; and yoga is strongly correlated with having a positive self-image.  Yoga was the repository of something basic in the human soul and psyche, Zed added.

Besides ACSM, other participating organizations included American Council on Exercise, National Council on Strength and Fitness and The Cooper Institute. Dr. Walter R. Thompson, associate dean at Georgia State University, is the President of ACSM, which is headquartered in Indianapolis and claims to be “world’s largest sports medicine and exercise science organization”.