While you can’t avoid all stress, you CAN counteract its negative effects by learning how to put your mind and body into a state of relaxation one that counteracts what’s known as the stress response. The stress response floods your body with hormones (mainly adrenaline and cortisol) that prepare you for “fight or flight.” While this biological stress response is helpful in a real emergency situation where you have to be alert or quickly escape an imminent danger, it wears your body down and eventually makes you sick when its constantly being activated.
Moving into a relaxed state brings your body (and ultimately your mind) back into balance: deepening your breathing, reducing the flood of stress hormones, slowing down your heart rate and blood pressure, and relaxing your muscles. One of the best ways to reduce stress and learn how to quickly shift into a state of relaxation is by practicing yoga.
Yoga can be considered a mind-body type of complementary and alternative medicine practice with many health benefits. It brings together physical and mental disciplines to achieve peacefulness of body and mind, helping you relax and manage stress and anxiety.
Yoga has many styles, forms and intensities. Hatha yoga, in particular, may be a good choice for stress management. Hatha is one of the most common styles of yoga, and some beginners find it easier to practice because of its slower pace and easier movements. A more advanced offshoot of Hatha called Iyengar yoga offers the opportunity to go deeper with your practice. Both these types of yoga consist of a series of poses or postures (sometimes referred to as asanas) and controlled breathing exercises (sometimes referred to as pranayama) that force you to focus your attention on long steady movements and your breath. Through visualizations you are able to stretch your arms, legs, hips, thighs, shoulders, neck and back in ways that open your joints and release the tension in your muscles caused by stress and poor posture. By focusing your breath, you are able to calm your mind and achieve a deep state of peace and relaxation.
Over time, you’ll be able to lengthen your breath effortlessly, both on the mat and off. This lengthening of the breath, especially on exhalations, lowers your heart rate and encourages a switch in your autonomic nervous system from the flight or fight response (sympathetic nervous system) to a state of relaxation (parasympathetic nervous system). Eventually your body learns to make the shift more readily and you’ll spend more time with a balanced autonomic nervous system and less time caught up feeling the anxiety of the flight or fight response that was dominating the show before.
Most people can benefit from any style of yoga — it’s all about your personal preferences. But if relaxation and stress relief are what you’re after then power yoga like Ashtanga or Bikram with their intense poses and focus on fitness, are not the best choices.
Since injuries can happen when yoga is practiced incorrectly, it’s best to learn by attending group classes or hiring a private teacher. Once you’ve learned the basics, you can practice alone or with others, tailoring your practice as you see fit.
Stress experts generally recommend setting aside at least 10 to 20 minutes a day for your relaxation practice. If you’d like to get even more stress relief, aim for 30 minutes to an hour. That’s why yoga is a perfect choice. And a regular yoga practice will do wonders for insomnia or other stress-related sleep issues. Namaste!
one of the best things to incorporate with Stress Management is meditation and deep breating exercises.’*,