As the child of two parents who have problems with the connection between their mind and their body, I'm naturally very concerned about my overall health. My mind body link is of extreme importance to me, because I have watched as one illness (Myetonic Muscular Dystrophy) claimed my mother, and polio (and its permanent after effects, such as post polio syndrome) have left my father increasingly enervated and in ever increasing pain. While I have no idea if doing yoga would have helped either of them with their overall health, I do know that it helps my mind and body to be more connected to one another.
When you do yoga, you have to focus on the movements themselves for a long time. Just mastering the physicality of each movement is taxing to your body. And the level of focus required, not just to "get down and do it," but also to properly monitor how your body is aligned. Once you overcome all of the excuses, and just do the motions, your mind body connection starts to improve just by default. It isn't something that you have to plan to do – it basically just happens of its own accord. And the mind body link is probably the most important one you will ever have, because it allows you to form the links between yourself and others that we all so desperately need.
Start out by visualizing yourself finding the time to practice yoga. The hardest part is getting through your mind the idea that this is who you are, and a better version of yourself is what you can become with time and practice. While nobody really knows whether the mind body link is the only part of strength and flexibility, it is definitely an important part of both aspects of your physical fitness. If your mind body link is of poor quality, then you either start to lose, or never properly develop, the strength, agility, speed and "natural grace" that characterizes an athlete or dancer in motion.
Once your mind is in order, and you are really into growing your level of fitness, almost anything would work well for you. Running, swimming, cycling, weight training or calisthenics would all work wonders for your mind body connection, if your mind is in the right place. The fact that yoga is something you can do in one place and using only a bare minimum of equipment makes an especially good way to grow your overall health, though.
It would be interesting to study whether the practice of yoga can actually help with muscular dystrophy and post polio syndrome. While both disorders are regarded by stodgy western medicine as "unstoppable and purely genetic," keep in mind that these are the same people who used to think that blood letting was a viable means of curative treatment. The opinions of medical science are far from infallible, and there is still a great deal that we do not know, about a host of illnesses. Alternative therapy starts with opening your mind to other ideas, and ends with seeing if these ideas actually work.
