Are you suffering from anxiety? Yoga can help.
Life is all ups and downs. It’s great for a while and takes downturns too. When the latter happens, it’s common to feel anxious. The situation may feel out of control, leading to negative feelings of stress and anxiety.
Rather than turn to addictive anxiety medications or unhealthy habits like overeating, opt for yoga. It can help calm your nerves and soothe your anxiety in the following ways:
Reducing stress hormones
When the trigger occurs, such as when you get bad news, the body releases stress hormones as part of the flight, fight, or freeze response. This response can cause you to show anxiety symptoms, such as restlessness, trembling, sweating, and increased heart rate.
Yoga can significantly lower the stress hormone - cortisol. It consists of breathing exercises that help you concentrate on reducing rapid breathing. In addition, the meditation aspect of yoga can help you gain mental clarity and soothe your anxiety.
Triggering endorphins
Yoga, like any other form of physical exercise, helps to trigger endorphins in the body. Poses such as the tree, triangle, fish, and extended puppy pose help to trigger stress-relieving endorphins that significantly improve your mood.
With endorphins flooding your bloodstream after a single yoga session, your anxiety levels will be much reduced.
Stimulating the vagus nerve
The parasympathetic nervous system is responsible for helping you feel safe and calm, and various yoga exercises can help to stimulate it.
The vagus nerve is the primary nerve of the parasympathetic system. Yoga stimulates this nerve by enhancing how you perceive sensations inside you.
It also increases vagal tone, helping you relax soon after stress, subsequently reducing symptoms of nervous system dysfunctions like anxiety.
Meditation
Meditation is a highly effective way to enhance interoception, which is your capacity to perceive internal signals from your body, such as feelings of anxiety.
Practicing yoga poses such as the corpse, lotus, and cow poses can help with mindfulness and self-regulation, which helps to keep you in your body and out of the turmoil of your thoughts.
Observing the thoughts that arise during mindful movement builds your awareness, which boosts relaxation and alleviates anxiety.
Building mental resilience
You cannot always control the situations that trigger your anxiety. However, you can learn to improve your response and, subsequently, your ability to manage it whenever it resurfaces.
Yoga asanas foster acceptance and reduce the anxiety-driven tendency to avoid bad feelings. Practicing the more difficult physical poses teaches you to accept feelings of discomfort rather than avoiding them.
This builds mental resilience and makes you less susceptible to being weighed down by anxiety in the moment and future.
Soothe anxiety and make a world of difference with yoga at Shift
Anxiety is a negative feeling that hampers your capacity to think clearly. It can lead to anxiety disorders and panic attacks in extreme situations. Research indicates that yoga has a positive effect on the brain centers responsible for feelings of anxiety.
So, avail yourself of the opportunity to soothe your anxiety effectively and healthily by practicing yoga with us at Shift. Are you suffering from anxiety? Yoga can help.
Life is all ups and downs. It’s great for a while and takes downturns too. When the latter happens, it’s common to feel anxious. The situation may feel out of control, leading to negative feelings of stress and anxiety.
Rather than turn to addictive anxiety medications or unhealthy habits like overeating, opt for yoga. It can help calm your nerves and soothe your anxiety in the following ways:
Reducing stress hormones
When the trigger occurs, such as when you get bad news, the body releases stress hormones as part of the flight, fight, or freeze response. This response can cause you to show anxiety symptoms, such as restlessness, trembling, sweating, and increased heart rate.
Yoga can significantly lower the stress hormone - cortisol. It consists of breathing exercises that help you concentrate on reducing rapid breathing. In addition, the meditation aspect of yoga can help you gain mental clarity and soothe your anxiety.
Triggering endorphins
Yoga, like any other form of physical exercise, helps to trigger endorphins in the body. Poses such as the tree, triangle, fish, and extended puppy pose help to trigger stress-relieving endorphins that significantly improve your mood.
With endorphins flooding your bloodstream after a single yoga session, your anxiety levels will be much reduced.
Stimulating the vagus nerve
The parasympathetic nervous system is responsible for helping you feel safe and calm, and various yoga exercises can help to stimulate it.
The vagus nerve is the primary nerve of the parasympathetic system. Yoga stimulates this nerve by enhancing how you perceive sensations inside you.
It also increases vagal tone, helping you relax soon after stress, subsequently reducing symptoms of nervous system dysfunctions like anxiety.
Meditation
Meditation is a highly effective way to enhance interoception, which is your capacity to perceive internal signals from your body, such as feelings of anxiety.
Practicing yoga poses such as the corpse, lotus, and cow poses can help with mindfulness and self-regulation, which helps to keep you in your body and out of the turmoil of your thoughts.
Observing the thoughts that arise during mindful movement builds your awareness, which boosts relaxation and alleviates anxiety.
Building mental resilience
You cannot always control the situations that trigger your anxiety. However, you can learn to improve your response and, subsequently, your ability to manage it whenever it resurfaces.
Yoga asanas foster acceptance and reduce the anxiety-driven tendency to avoid bad feelings. Practicing the more difficult physical poses teaches you to accept feelings of discomfort rather than avoiding them.
This builds mental resilience and makes you less susceptible to being weighed down by anxiety in the moment and future.
Soothe anxiety and make a world of difference with yoga at Shift
Anxiety is a negative feeling that hampers your capacity to think clearly. It can lead to anxiety disorders and panic attacks in extreme situations. Research indicates that yoga has a positive effect on the brain centers responsible for feelings of anxiety.
So, avail yourself of the opportunity to soothe your anxiety effectively and healthily by practicing yoga with us at Shift.