Tense muscles and rapid breath. Headache and stomach ache. Difficulty sleeping, depression and irritability. All symptoms of the great modern complaint: stress. How can we relieve stress and make our bodies and minds less susceptible to its ravages in the future? More and more people are turning to yoga, an age old method of balancing mind and body.
Yoga uses a combination of mental activity, physical activity, stillness, meditation and breathing exercises to balance and detoxify the body and mind. The physical activity is composed of positions known as asanas. Different asanas have benefits for different systems of the body. For instance, asanas commonly referred to as twists are excellent for detoxification and regulation of the digestion and lymphatic system. Poses where the heart is above the head, known as inverted poses, are said to ?turn back the clock? and stimulate the circulatory and glandular systems.
Pranayama is the name for yoga breathing practices and range from very simple awareness of breath exercises to changing of breath patterns for specific health benefits. They can have a profound impact on mental and physical health and can be practiced anywhere and at any time! Don't believe me? Try this quick breathing exercise while sitting in the chair at your computer:
1. Uncross your legs and place the soles of your feet flat on the floor.
2. If you are feeling that your energy levels are low, rest your hands with the palms up on your thighs; for stress relief and grounding, rest your hands palms down.
3. Start by taking notice of the natural movement of your breath as you inhale and exhale. Spend one minute breathing in and out slowly. Feel the inflation of your chest and belly as you observe your breathing.
4. Now gently release the muscles in the back of your neck and tuck in your chin slightly. Feel the crown of the head reach toward the sky. Ground your feet downwards as you find stillness in your body.
5. Begin to deepen your breathing, allowing the breath to circulate lower and lower into your belly. Keep your shoulders relaxed by rolling your shoulder blades down the back.
6. Now begin to even out the lengths of inhales and exhales to come to a smooth rhythmic breath. First, inhale a breath through the nose, filling up the lungs while slowly counting to five, then exhale through the nose, emptying the lungs to another count of five.
7. Continue to inhale and exhale through the nose, lengthening the the inhales and exhales until your breathing is at a slow, comfortable pace. This is the even, calm breathing that you should use during a beginning yoga practice. It can also be used by itself as a breathing exercise to increase mental equanimity and focus.
With the physical benefits of yoga come mental benefits. At the least, the combination of physical activity and concentration on yoga breathing practices allows you to stop your mind from racing and gives you a break from the distractions of the world. Improvement in overall mood and energy levels are also often reported with the continuing practice of yoga.
Eventually, the goal of the asanas is to create health and balance throughout all of the systems of the body, leaving the mind free to find peace and balance without the interruption of pain or discomfort. In fact, possibly the most important health benefits of yoga can be found in the last yoga pose in any yoga sequence?savasana. As you lay down in stillness, savasana allows your body to incorporate all of the benefits of your yoga practice. Yoga can be incorporated into daily life, using a combination of breathing techniques and asana sequences. Even a ten minute yoga exercise can bring mental focus and calmness to your life.
Stress makes a person narrow his perspective, feel lost, lose proportion and the sense of the real things in life, some people get into a chain reaction in which stress is just the cause of more stress, eventually leading these people to seek mental health help.
I am assuming that you are a normal (what is normal, right?) person, that does not currently have or had any kind of mental disease, that you are reading this article for one simple reason, you start to feel that stress is overcoming you, that something has changed as a result of increased stress, and you want out. You want your life back, you sense of control and to shake this feeling of urgency around each and every issue in you life.
How can I understand what you are going through? Went through? The answer is simple, I went through a severe mental breakdown as a result of continues stress. It took months for me to go down, and months for me to get back up, but once I got up (about 15 years ago) I have been studying and learning everything I can about stress, including talking to people like you. Identifying stress is the first step to fighting it, and reducing it.
When I first realized that my life seemed to have no breaks, no pause and that daily activities simply followed each other as if magically linked one to the other, driving to work connected to work, driving back home connected with the tasks I had at home (that connected with the tasks for work I left for home). There was no real joy, no fun and most importantly? no life.
No one needs to be an expert on mental health to know that he is experiencing stress, when it hits its very clear. The biggest problem is that we humans get used to it, and we learn to live with it, baring it on our heads, our shoulders, our hearts. While stress gets rooted into our bodies we become bitter, angry, impatient and generally not pleasant to be with or around. Not a big surprise ha?, of course, you can probably remember a time you knew someone that was so stress it made you feel stress, you also probably avoided seeing this person?
Assuming stress just showed up at your door a few weeks or months ago, what can you do to try and do battle with it? Is it at all possible to beat stress, and to return to a normal life, with normal stress levels that go up and down ? normally (in contrast to continuously).
YOU CAN. That's the first thing I got to say. Almost anyone can, and there is no reason you cant. What am I talking about? Beating stress. Getting your life back, enjoying and living, every single moment of every single day.
Here are a few things that helped me a lot, I know some of them sound old fashioned or simply old, but they worked for me, and they might just work for you.
Take a hobby, start something you always wanted, it can be working in the garden (amazing) or learning how to ski dive (even more amazing), working out is good, running or swimming, in fact almost any kind of regular physical activity is good. I highly recommend golf, its ability to drive your attention from everything else and make you focus on a small white ball for a few hours, with spending a (relatively) long time out doors, is great. If you carry your golf bag and walk the course (walk not slowly wander around) you will also get into shape.
Physical exercise ? once a day, for 20 to 45 min, do something, in the house out of the house, doesn't matter, just do something. Yoga is great, because almost everyone can practice it, and eventually you will perform the positions in synchronization with your breathing, which is almost the best way to relax and regulate your breath.
Relax ? take a break. Do I need to explain? Just take a break, if it's a short break you can use it to relax, close your eyes and imagine a nice place you can spend a few imaginary moments at, if you are not good at imagining things, try and meditate for a few minutes, clear your mind of thought and try to get your subconscious to shut up.
Deal with problems and break them into smaller pieces ? just like cleaning a big room, break your problems into smaller problems and decide which ones you do not want to deal with right now and which are the ones you are going to solve, do not leave the other problems for an unknown date to be solved ? commit yourself to a time and day you will address these other issues.
I wish you all the best, and good luck in beating stress and starting gaining control over your life. When you get into these stressful moods again, try and think of how an nervous, stressed person looks like, and what is his chances of solving his problems, take a long breath, and plan your victory.
Both Ashley & John Furnem are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
Ashley has sinced written about articles on various topics from Yoga Practice, Home Improvement and Yoga Practice. ABOUT THE AUTHORAshley Hecht is one of the founders of Guided Yoga (. Ashley's top article generates over 1900 views. to your Favourites.
John Furnem has sinced written about articles on various topics from Family Concerns, Health and Guided Meditation. John Furnem is a dot com veteran, specializing in human resources and work psychology he has written articles and held workshops/seminars for stress relief and stress management. John currently writes articles for. John Furnem's top article generates over 14800 views. to your Favourites.