“Yoga is the journey of the self, through the self, to the self.” – The Bhagavad Gita
One of the most transformational things that I have added into my life is yoga. For years I went to a once a week class and really enjoyed the benefits that it added into my life. About one and a half years ago I started doing daily yoga and that was a complete game changer. I think sometimes people can write yoga off as being ‘a bit slow’ or ‘boring’ as a form of exercise but doing yoga is so much more than that just exercising your body! It is a total body workout – mind, body and also your soul. Any recurring negative thought patterns or behaviours are really brought to the surface and it really helps you to relax your whole body and bring you peace from a crazy hyper-connected world.
There are so many different types of yoga I try to mix it up and do a faster, high intensity, flow based practice in the morning (often with weights) and in the evening I do a slower, relaxing more stretching based yoga practice. I recommend that you try some different types of yoga to find a style that you enjoy and that works for your body and what you want to achieve. -B xx
There are SO many benefits to doing yoga and there is still limited research as to its far-reaching benefits for our overall holistic health. This month at EY Mag we thought we would highlight some of the many mental advantages that including a regular yoga practice can bring into your life.
5 WAYS yoga can increase your mental strength and holistic well-being:
1. INCREASES SELF-AWARENESS:
Yoga helps to increase your mind-body connection and creates more body awareness. When you are more body aware you are less likely to injure yourself when exercising because you are more aware of your own physical limitations. Yoga can also help you to be more aware of our emotional health. Yoga can help us to feel more connected and loving towards others, despite any differences. This enhances our overall social well-being (1). Yoga also helps us to cultivate a more peaceful and positive inner state (4).
2. REDUCES STRESS:
Including more mind and body practices into your day can go a long way to helping to reduce stress and heal any imbalance of the nervous system (1). Research has been done recently looking at how yoga can benefit people suffering from depression, anxiety, PTSD and schizophrenia. In anxiety disorders, GABA (gamma-aminobutyric acid) a chemical that helps to regulate nerve activity is low in the brain (1). Yoga has been shown to naturally increase our levels of GABA.
Yoga also helps to reduce stress by activating our relaxation response (1). This is turn helps with our bodies regulation to stress and pain. A 2008 study showed that people who have an inadequate stress response are far more sensitive to pain (2, University of Utah). Yoga was shown to help us learn to regulate our response to stress and improve our pain hypersensitivity and response (2). By also reducing any perceived stress and threats yoga can help to lower blood pressure and reduce our heart rate (2). Yoga is a very effective coping skill that we can learn to use in response to stress (3).
3. BRINGS YOU BACK TO THE PRESENT MOMENT:
Our minds have the tendency to never be still and always be thinking about the past or the future. Much like meditation yoga teaches us to be mindful of our thoughts and regularly bring our mind back to the present moment. True focus and happiness lie in the present moment. Training our mind to be more in the present moment enables us to feel more in control of ourselves and our mental state. This is turn also helps us to increase focus, concentration and attention.
4. HOLISTIC FITNESS:
Regularly practising yoga means that your body won’t just be physically fit you will also be mentally fit also. True health comes from being balanced, both physically, mentally and emotionally (4). Taking care of our physical health needs while ignoring our mental and emotional needs will lead to an imbalance in our bodies. Most yoga practices contain three elements. Physical poses or ‘asanas’, controlled breathing or ‘pranayamas’ and some time to meditate or deeply relax. These three different elements have different benefits for our bodies that work holistically together.
“Health is not a mere absence of disease. It is a dynamic expression of life – in terms of how joyful, loving and enthusiastic you are”. – Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
5. SELF-HEALING:
Yoga boosts our immune response and can also help to detoxify our body. Practising yoga can activate our bodies natural self-healing response and can help us to heal any imbalance in our body. Whether it be a physical imbalance, a mental imbalance or an emotional imbalance. Practising yoga really helps to bring to the surface anything that needs to be resolved within our bodies and also within our lives ♥
“When we feel pain we feel separated from our self and from our own body; we feel disconnected. In yoga, we’re uncovering what exists inside of us and we learn to see that what’s there is already whole and complete”. – Tiffany Crikshank (Founder of Yoga Healing)
Links:
1 – Mental health and psychological benefits of Yoga from Psychology Today
2 – Yoga for health and depression from Harvard Health
3 – Yoga benefits from the American Osteopathic Association
4 – Top ten yoga benefits from The Art of Living
If you are starting yoga for the first time as an older adult you are not going to have the same level of flexibility as a younger person and you need to be sure to protect all of your bones as you gain flexibility! Here is a great article that discusses what poses you might need to steer clear of when you are first starting out.
38 Fabulous ways that yoga can benefit you from Yoga Journal
16 Inspirational stories of healing through yoga from Sonima
My Dharma – Empowering yoga documentary