Occupational health and yoga: an analysis

The state of health influenced by the environment of any occupation or work is called occupational health. According to World Health Organization ‘Occupational Health’ is a method of Medical science for promoting and maintaining the state of physical, mental, social and spiritual well-being in all occupations, preventing the loss of health caused by working conditions. It aims at protecting worker’s/ employee’s health which is influenced by occupational environment.
So far as the occupation in industry is concerned inspite of its financial benefits it has been observed that growth of industry is responsible for creating immense environmental pollution, which leads to health hazards. For example: the process of producing finished products out of raw materials through machines makes the environment polluted by releasing various kinds of wastes like solid, liquid, gaseous and chemical etc. All these wastes cause harm to the health of the concerned employees by creating respiratory disorders, injury to skin and other organs of the body. Working with unguarded machines for long hours may cause accident which is a major health problem leading to fatigue, backache, diseases of joints and muscles. In this way we know how the working condition or environment of any occupation affects employee’s heath, happiness and peace. Since stress and strain are inter related, we can observe that prolonged physical diseases cause stress disorders which includes aggressiveness, anxiety and depression etc. Again, stress at home may affect the progress of his/her job. Severe prolonged stress may do not allow an employee to work efficiently. So, it should be the motto of every employee of any occupation to create and maintain a healthy and secured work environment where every employee can work peacefully with full freedom and without any fear of danger and tension due to loss of health. To create a healthy work environment we should know the method of managing stress regarding which we get a lot of ideas and information from ancient Sanskrit writings about yoga. Thus, with an aim of preventing and relieving stress disorders for taking care of occupational health, it is proposed here to throw some light on “OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND YOGA: ANALYSIS” with the help of some relevant quotations from Patanjali Yoga Darshan, Bagavadgeeta, Vedas and other ancient Sanskrit writings.

Dr. Khagendrea Patra
Rourkela (Orissa)