Having understood the five sheaths of body, we can easily understand the concept of ailment according to yoga. (If you are not aware, please refer Five shealths of body article)
In Anandamaya kosa a man is healthiest with perfect harmony and balance of all his faculties. At vignanamaya kosa there are movements, but are channelized in the right direction. As such it is in the manomaya kosa, the imbalances start. Likes and dislikes have come to play at this level. They start governing our actions; often they are in the wrong direction. The liking of Gulab jamoon in a diabetic may lure him to eat the same against doctor’s advice. Thus, going against right knowledge causes imbalances. The erratic life style of excesses either in eating and drinking habits, excessive indulgences in any form of pleasures of life, work, sleep etc., stress because of work, life situations causes imbalances in manomaya kosa. These imbalances amplify themselves resulting in mental illness. At this stage, there are no symptoms at the physical level. The problem of long standing stresses begins in the manomaya kosa and manifests initially only as psychological problems such as irritability, emotional liabity, excessive smoking or alcohol, sleep disturbances, difficulty in decision making etc. When this imbalance occurs in manomaya kosa, the pranamaya kosa gets disturbed. The prana in pranamaya kosa fluctuates depending on the degree of imbalance in the manomaya kosa. The rhythmic movement of the prana is disturbed. Now the prana overflows, underflows or becomes stagnant in some of the nadis. When this happens corresponding cells in the physical body do not get proper amount of prana. So the functioning of these cells of the organs gets disturbed. If this entire process happens for a long period of time, mental disturbances start to manifest in the physical body resulting in an ailment.
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