Yoga: An Ancient Practice to Relieve Contemporary Stress
By Kim Archer | May 1, 2008
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You’re under stress, but you have to be in control all day long. Over time, that can lead to poor eating habits, the production of stress hormones and cardiac risk factors. The good news is you can reverse these risk factors non-pharmacologically and develop some habits for a lifetime that complement conventional diet and exercise. Yoga helps you to relearn that natural state that your body and mind want to be in: relaxation.
Yoga is the most prominent form of the burgeoning mind-body health movement, which includes tai chi, qigong and other meditative forms of exercise. Mind-body fitness, which derives from Eastern philosophies and religions, improves physical and emotional well-being.
The overall benefits of mind-body exercise are documented in an increasing number of scientific studies. They include everything from reducing cardiac risk factors to enhancing mood.
Yoga’s kind, gentle movements are easy on the joints and yet still improves strength and flexibility, as well as muscle tone. In fact, it can make you more youthful than the sometimes jarring effects of aerobics, weight lifting, or running.
In fact, practicing yoga can impact every part of your existence. Most modern Western practitioners, for example, focus on the physical asanas, or positions. However, many others utilize yoga as a path to bliss and live their lives in its all-encompassing embrace.
Considering yoga’s lofty goals, it’s delightfully simple and can be done anywhere, anytime. Taken to its extreme, yoga encompasses everything from a moral code and dietary practices to deep meditation. Most commonly, though, it’s a combination of asanas, meditation and pranayama (breathing exercises).
Entire books have been written on yoga breathing. Deep breathing is both calming and energizing. The energy you feel from a few minutes of careful breathing is not nervous or hyper, but that calm, steady energy we all need.
If you’re feeling particularly stressed, try this five-minute “breath break” to energize yourself and release stress. Read through the instructions several times before you actually try following the steps.
1. Sit with your spine as straight as possible. Use a chair if necessary but don’t slump into it. Feet flat on the floor with knees directly over the center of your feet. Use a book or cushion under your feet if they do not rest comfortably on the floor. Hands are on the tops of your legs.
2. Close your eyes gently and simply rest them, lids closed.
3. Think about your ribs, at the front, back, and at the sides of your body. Your lungs are behind those ribs.
4. Feel your lungs filling up, your ribs expanding out and up. Feel your lungs emptying, your ribs coming back down and in. Don’t push the breath.
5. The first few times you do this, do it for 2 to 3 minutes, then do it for up to 5 to 10 minutes. At first, set aside a time at least once a day to do this. When you learn how good it makes you feel, you’ll want to do it at other times as well.
Topics: Stress Management |
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