Why Yoga Is Good For Stress
Yoga is such an expanding concept among the fitness world. In the past 5,000 years or so (some say even 10,000) this old spiritual practice has become more and more desirable in the world of health, sports and wellness. As a matter of fact, yoga was always integrated in almost all sports branches one way or another but did not get the credit for it, and in many aspects plays a well-respected role in stress relief- physically and mentally.
You could find ancient yoga poses in warmups and stretchings at the end of a workout, you can see the resemblance between yoga and multiple ballet postures, pilates borrowed many yoga poses (aka Asanas) and in many further fitness branches developed throughout the last century. Yoga was always in the background whereas in the past 2 decades moved to the front row and is agreed to be good for us.
So what is Yoga and why is yoga good for our stress levels and health? Yoga is the art of stretching and practicing stillness combined with mindful healthy breathing.
In each Asana (yoga pose) you allow yourself to inhale essential oxygen into your lungs whilst in exhalation able to stretch better and simultaneously let go of mental, emotional and physical stress level.
Yoga is good for stress as it reduces anxiety and muscle tension, increases strength and flexibility, helps to have better sleep, contribute to reduction of cortisol (stress hormone) levels, improvement of vast medical conditions, spiritual growth and sense of wellbeing, helps us stay young and is open for almost anyone to practice.
So let’s try to shed some light on this very wise ancient practice and elaborate some more:
Reduces anxiety and muscle tension increases strength and flexibility
Our muscles work in 2 main conditions: Tension and length. If many sport branches you work on contracting your muscles and by that making them stronger, bigger and full of tension. The stretching part works on lengthening and flexing the muscles in order to allow the entrance of more oxygen and room for growth and development, in the muscles and in our perspective.
Yoga does the trick, it will stretch the body and will reveal places you didn’t even know could be stretched, or exist within you for that matter. Oxygen will enter muscle tissues more harmonically and will free your body of all this extra bad stress stored there, due to daily life combined with workout stress outcome. Your days as your body will get calmer.
Better sleep, better us – balances stress levels
Sleep is essential to our Physical and mental health and contributes to renewal and healing of heart and blood vessels. Lack of it can, in severe cases lead to heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, stroke and many mental problems caused by stress.
Higher stress levels can make sleeping more challenging by causing lack of it or damage its quality. If not managed well or reduced stress can lead to severe sleep disorders and deprivation. At the same time not sleeping enough or poor quality of it will most likely lead to higher stress levels – a vicious cycle that can easily lead to the “what came first?” question – the chicken or the egg.
It is however common knowledge that a good night’s sleep can help reduce stress levels so we need to do the maximum effort to provide ourselves a proper sleep and that’s where yoga enters for aid.
Yoga practice helps to ease our mind, therefore stress levels are lowered while practicing yoga, heart rate and blood pressure lowers and we can fall asleep more easily.
The practice of between 15-30 minutes yoga before bedtime can make wonders to our sleep, quality and length and through this simple solution can and will prevent us from entering that vicious cycle of sleep deprivation.
Reduction of stress hormones
Reduction of stress hormones is an extensive work in progress and is related to many aspects in our physic, starting from our muscle tension and lengthening and the production of stress-ease in allowance of better oxygen entry into our body cells eventually.
Yoga is also related to lower back tension release, one of the dominant causes for stress among modern life which resulted in unbalanced manufacture of stress hormones too and as mentioned yoga is a significant pioneer in aiding with reduction of all mentioned above.
Another angle is the intestine and lower abdominal massage through yoga practice which improves significantly the digestive system function that leads to ease of stress hormones as the body less needs to struggle in the digestion process.
Breathing right and more effectively in yoga practice calms the brain and activate the parasympathetic (the relaxed form of) nervous system, ease headaches, anxiety and makes us feel more loose and relaxed.
Those repeated breaths allow us to release mental and physical stress, stimulates the liver and kidneys which are both vital partners in stress hormones manufactured and even provide us with a good stretch of muscles that are directly correlated with anti-stress hormone release through the release of the neurotransmitter known as serotonin.
Improvement of vast medical conditions
Yoga plays a supportive role in the improvement of wide medical conditions. A good example is in allergies and asthma symptom relief through allowing a wider entrance of oxygen by specific yoga poses for the respiratory system.
It is also known for its virtues in lowering our blood pressure, heart rate (when needed of course) and symptom relief of stress influenced autoimmune disease such as psoriasis, etc. all through specific poses that direct body and mind into calmness and balance of one’s nervous system and hormone levels.
Spiritual growth and sense of well-being
Knowledge is power. And power, when used properly, can make wonders to us human beings and beings in general. The connection to mother nature, grounding, meditating, inhaling-exhaling, knowing how to draw the exact thin gentle line of a smile can and will necessarily create an empowered harmonic and healthy growth in oneself.
This path will root in us a better reality, mindful growth and eventually will be infectious to our surroundings – and that is exactly how a healthy, wellness society is created – all for one and one for all.
With empowered mental mind and spirit comes calmer firmer body. And with that comes balanced functional stress levels. All of the above is achieved by yoga practice.
Yoga practice provide us with the tools to be in the present – right here, right now, not yesterday, not tomorrow but here – in the moment and in the understanding that when we contract the happiness from where we are we necessarily erase the wrongdoings of yesterday and construct the foundations of tomorrow and that my friends is a true authentic growth into wellbeing. Simple as that.
The Asanas get easier in time till gets to be a part of our daily routine and natural physic. We practice yoga by bending to pick a tomato from our fridge door if we only know how. Once learned one can be constantly connected in body, mind, and soul.
Helps us stay young
Flash news: stress makes us old. No way to go around it, people live in stress and your body will get exhausted and old much quicker. Renewal of skin tissue and internal organs regenerate will happen much slower and less efficient and biological “old age” will come knocking on our door.
By yoga practice we stay calm longer and allow our bodies to perform better processes of regeneration, rebuilding and replacing malfunctioning cells or even full tissue. This will result in a much younger look as all our mechanisms will work flawlessly and improve life as a whole. They say “youth is wasted on the young”, we say “let’s have youth relocated to later days” so that we can enjoy it more.
Anyone can do it
Yoga is accessible to everyone. Yes, each one needs adjustment to their own abilities and limitations if such exist but no good comes out of excessive practice.
If adjusted well – all can endure this marvelous practice. It might seem challenging at first but very rewarding and easy to achieve in relatively short while as each Asana can be performed in at least 3 difficulty levels.
Do what feels good and don’t exaggerate – work without pain. Suffering has no room in yoga practice in specifics and in stress relief in general. Just enjoy the road and the ride.
And live. Here and now. NAMASTE