The intense daily rush of modern city life, the insufficient 24-hour work tempo, stress in work and social life disrupt both psychology and physiology. Yoga is the most useful advice to get rid of this complex life for a moment, to devote time to ourselves, to our body, to our brain. In fact, the way to improve the quality of life and extend the life span is to invest in yourself.
The more we love and support ourselves, our soul and our body, the happier, more successful and productive we are. In this context, first getting to know yoga and then incorporating yoga into our lives will help to reduce stress in our lives. Finding your own way to relax and relieve stress is the best solution to getting rid of negative energy. Many people do yoga to relax their minds and balance their bodies.
We may feel mentally weakened. As time goes on, some things make us more nervous; intolerance, hard-to-reach goals, very intensive programs, etc. Stress can cause many serious illnesses, including stroke, as well as limiting and limiting our daily lives. Fortunately, you can control your stress level with yoga.
Stress is closely related to sleep disorder and lack of sleep. Many people have trouble sleeping. To overcome this problem, they use methods such as taking sleeping pills. What if we try something more natural to solve this problem? Exercise helps reduce stress and make you feel relaxed. As a result, you sleep much better. What’s more, doing yoga increases melatonin production.
Why are people happier who are exercising more often? Can yoga help improve mood? It is always impossible to be cheerful and in a good mood. However, practicing yoga brings us to a level of calmness and often we reach a level of harmony. It also increases the level of serotonin and decreases the level of stress. This is a hormone that is responsible for making us feel cheerful. If you are unhappy and you do not know why maybe you should start yoga.
A few minutes of yoga during the day can be a great way to get rid of daily stress in both body and mind. Yoga postures, pranayama, and meditation are effective techniques to relieve stress. With the practice of yoga, you will detox for the body and de-stress for the mind.
Yoga aims to calm the mind as a discipline. One of the most important steps of this process is to calm the body and relax it sufficiently. In yoga sessions, the accumulated tension is relieved by stretching and relaxing the body. Simultaneously, the focus of the mind is minimized during the session by minimizing the relationship between the mind and the outside world.
The yoga postures during the sessions are methodical applications especially for adjusting, slowing down and deepening the breath. Therefore, yoga philosophy recognizes that these three important factors follow one another. If the mind calms, the body calms down and if the body calms, the breath calms down. This cycle can thus become a total stress management method.
If you think that the stress has taken over and you cannot relieve your tension, it is recommended to try yoga and breathing sessions in the nearest yoga center.
How Did Yoga Become a Stress Reduction Method?
While stress is a primitive reaction of our body to survive, the chronic stress we are exposed to today has become the cause of many diseases. We are all stressed out. We consume ourselves in a cycle without realizing it. Although it is a good solution to get rid of stress factors, a new reason will surely come up. Therefore, the goal should be to manage stress better.
The stimulant, perceived as stressful, triggers the sympathetic nervous system, activating the “fight or flight” mechanism. It does this by triggering the release of stress hormones such as adrenaline and cortisol. To fight, the nervous system draws all energy sources from other organs and directs them to the muscles and brain. Fight or flight reaction is a primitive, innate response to our body’s fight or flight, which is perceived as an attack, damage or threat to our survival.
This also happens when we perceive an event as stressful. If the threat is real, hormones help protect our lives and send us the necessary oxygen to our legs to run. When the threat is completely perceptual, the same hormones are released into our bloodstream. Over time, these hormones use all the critical energy in the body, damaging our bodies and causing psychological and physical problems.
On the other hand, the stress that can be controlled can be good for activating your immune system for such as healing your wounds and fighting infections. What is worse is the chronic stress we create because of perception. Due to chronic stress, the body consumes energy unnecessarily.
There are, of course, two ways here. If it is possible, moving away from the stress factor and change the situation, and the other is to accept and change our reaction if we cannot change the situation. Sometimes stress can be avoidable. But the negative effects on the brain and body do not need to be avoidable.
By changing the way we interpret the world around us, we can control stress. By changing our perception of a situation, we can even gain the power to see its benefits. The fact that stress is a perception means that we can do something about it.
In general, we try to overcome stress with short-term relaxation methods; such as alcohol, smoking, drugs, and stimulants, anti-depressants, socializing. However, even if they reduce stress momentarily, there is not a complete solution to the situation and bring other problems. Yoga and meditation, on the other hand, can be very helpful in coping with stress as an exercise to provide mental, emotional and physical body togetherness.
Properly practiced yoga has as relaxing effects as a hug or massage to reduce tension and relax the physical body. Stress and tension can cause us to breathe quickly and in a shallow way, which can cause more anxiety. Yoga practice offers more effective breathing by using the diaphragm and using the full lung capacity.
It is easy for individuals to correctly identify the sources of stress in their lives and to realize the strategies that enable the sustainability of individual balance throughout the process through physical and mental techniques of yoga. Yoga, which is a process that makes the person completely alive and curiously enters into life, can be understood as all behaviors that develop holistic experiences in the body, heart, and mind.
It is known that stress prepares the ground for physical and musculoskeletal system. Asanas, reflecting the physicality of yoga, improve strength, endurance and flexibility in the muscles, bones, and joints through yoga postures, while reducing the stresses caused by stress experiences in these areas, physiological balance and harmony can be re-established and effective results can be achieved in coping with pain.
On the other hand, the regular practice of yoga postures increases the sense of well-being in the body by acting as a regulator for both the circulatory and digestive and excretory systems. It can be said that the mental change necessary to maintain a life free from stress with yoga is based on the integration of breath into movement.
Pranayama breathing techniques, which constitute another application step of the yoga system, are an important instrument that strengthens mental serenity and establishes the deep bond that the individual establishes with himself. It is possible to support the heart and lungs as well as to increase the energy of the body and to maintain the total balance by means of correct breathing.
The right breathing affects many areas from the person’s spiritual life to the way they perceive the world. The awareness of breathing creates a void by freeing attention from thoughts. The only way to develop consciousness, to come into contact with holistic consciousness, to be here and now, is to be aware of the breath.
Some changes are observed in those practicing yoga with their structured content based on stress management;
- Establishing a connection between the habits of the current lifestyle and stress.
- Distinguishing the negative effects of stress factors on personality, body, mind and soul integrity.
- Improving the quality of life, creating a stable perspective to support setting and achieving new life goals.
- The flow of feelings of serenity and tranquility to the integrity of the entity.
- Transformation of stress coping skills into lasting experiences.
You can do yoga by taking only half an hour of the day and you can gain balance and calmness by filling the gap between mind and body. When you practice yoga movements that provide stress management on a regular basis, you will feel that the effects of stress are reduced and that you are much more comfortable and calm than stressful times.
Stress management may require some radical social changes. If you cannot, you can control your stress and lead a healthier life with a simple routine of meditation and yoga. Yoga can effectively reduce stress by improving various physical, emotional and mental functions. Today, many people have recognized that yoga is useful in awareness-concentration, balance-posture, and stress management.
Yoga Postures Help Reduce Stress
Standing Forward Bending Pose
- While standing, bend your knees so that your palms touch the ground by exhaling. Let your head touch your legs.
- Feel your spine pulled in different directions.
- Straighten your legs.
- Stay for 4-8 breaths, then break your knees and return to your standing position with a breath.
Head to Knee Forward Bend
- Extend your legs in the sitting position, break your left leg and bring your soles to the inside of your right hip.
- Put both hands on either side of your right leg and return to the extended leg while breathing.
- Exhale and lean forward, stop for 5 breaths and repeat on the opposite side.
Cat Posing
- Stand on your hands and knees, breathing towards your spine and pull.
- Round your back up.
- Put your head down, but do not put your chin on your chest.
Bridge Pose
- Lie on your back, break your knees and hit the ground with your feet. Keep your feet wide.
- Place your hands under your body with your palms facing the floor.
- Press down on your feet, breathe, and lift your hips off the floor.
- Raise your chest by pressing your arms and shoulders to the ground and use your legs to raise your hips.
- Stand like this for 4-8 breaths, then breathe slowly and roll your back to the floor.
Extended Triangle
- Start by standing. Breathe open your legs 1 meter and open your hands sideways, with your palms to the floor stand.
- Rotate your right foot out at a 90-degree angle, and your left foot to the right.
- Tighten your hip muscles and turn your right hip outward, then bend the body from the hip side to the right leg.
- Turn your body to the left, then slowly move your left hip forward.
- Hold your right hand at your ankles and lift your left hand up.
- Keep your head flat or slightly tilted to the left, stay in this position for 30 seconds.
Eagle Posing
- Start by standing, break your knees and balance on your right foot.
- Place your left hip over the right and touch your left foot to your right thigh. Stay in balance for one breath, then point your arms straight forward and place your left arm under your right arm.
- Bend your elbows, press your palms together, pressing your arms together.
- Press your hips and chest against the wall and pull your stomach in.
- Stay for 1 minute, then unwrap your arms and legs and try on the other side.
Child Pose
- Lean on your knees by leaning on your knees with your legs together.
- Lean forward until your upper body is on your legs and your head is on the floor.
- Rest your hands beside your feet with the palms facing up.
- Stand like this for five breaths.
Legs up the Wall
- Move your hips as close as you can to the wall, lie down, lift your legs up to 90 degrees on your wall.
- Pose for 5 minutes with your hips on the wall and legs on the wall with your back on the floor.
