I recently conducted a series of workshops at a community event highlighting the mental health benefits of yoga. There are many! I wanted to share some of the highlights here:
- Yoga has been shown to yield major mental health benefits by reducing stress, symptoms of depression and anxiety as well as promoting overall wellbeing, body satisfaction and quality of life.
- What sets yoga apart from other forms of exercise (which are also powerful, natural antidepressants and antianxialytics)?
As it turns out, the research points to 3 key features of yoga that yield the greatest brain benefits. And the good news is that you don't have to go to an hour-long sweat session to get these benefits! You can take them off the mat and carry them into other areas of your life.
1. Breath.
Conscious breath work, such as the kind engaged in yogic practice, has a very nurturing effect on the Central Nervous System. More specifically, diaphragmatic breathing stimulates the Vagus Nerve, the 10th cranial nerve located at the base of the spine, which acts as an activating agent for the parasympathetic nervous system (the body's relaxation response). So breathing into difficult postures in yoga can serve as practice for breathing into difficult moments off-the-mat, too.
2. Body Awareness.
For many of us, we complete traditional forms of exercise (cardiovascular, strength training, etc.) by tuning out of our experience via music, magazines, TV shows at the gym, etc. But yoga calls us to tune into our inner experience, in a way that cultivates a deep, conscious awareness of our internal climate. This is important on two levels: 1. It helps us naturally attune to our internal emotional/physical state, so we become better aware of our needs, and 2. It helps us respond effectively to those needs, which results in better emotion regulation skills, less physical pain, more intuitive lifestyle choices, etc.
3. Mindfulness.
Because we are tuning into our bodies in yoga, we are inevitably tuning into the present moment. By really accessing our senses directly -- the feeling of our fingers spreading wide on the mat, the sense of the breath in the belly, the softening of the muscles on the face -- we are aligning ourselves with the present moment not only in body but also in mind. This has its own set of profoundly positive effects, both on and off the mat.
So, how can you apply these benefits to life off the mat?
The next time you're feeling stressed, agitated or unenergetic, try this brief exercise:
1. Start with the body. Sit in an upright, lifted posture. Allow the muscles of the face to soften. Sense the posture and carriage of the body as a whole.
2. Tune into the breath, down in the abdomen. Feeling the stretch of the abdomen wall on the inhale and the softening back down on the exhale.
3. Call to mind the thing that's most bothering you right now. Really let yourself imagine it, in either words or images.
4. Drop the awareness back down into the body. Where do you feel this emotion in the body? Where do you feel the stress, irritability, disappointment, etc.? Where is it showing up?
5. Allow the awareness to rest in this identified area by gently sending the breath there. In the same way that you would breathe into a difficult yoga pose, see if it's possible to breath into the location where you feel the emotion the strongest. Not to change it, but to be with it. To explore it. To open to it, and turn toward it.
6. Allow the breath to gently hold and caress the edges of this sensation for a moment or two, before bringing the awareness back to the room and opening your eyes.
I hope this was helpful for you! Let me know how it went for you!
Yours in wellness,
Heather
