Three Impactful Ways that Yoga Helps Decrease Anxiety

As social interactions and human connection remain limited, anxiety continues to surge through our society. To combat these anxious feelings and emotions, people are trying everything that they can to experience the levels of joy they once knew. Yoga, whether at home or in person, has been an extremely effective solution to calming the past two years of turbulence. Many people have added a yoga practice to their weekly routines. Additionally, during times of lockdown, yoga group classes via Zoom and yoga recordings were utilized in droves.

When experiencing bouts with anxiety and depression, it’s important to remember that we are not alone and that we are always supported. Wellness practices like yoga exist for us to recenter ourselves by bridging the gap between our minds and bodies. Through a consistent yoga practice, we can connect to our hearts and souls on a deeper level.

If you’re ever dealt with anxiety before, you will be excited to learn about these three impactful ways that yoga can help you experience more joy and live your best life.

1.Movement is Crucial

Oftentimes, anxiety can stem from thoughts about the future. For example, you could be nervous about a future event that you are required to attend, or an upcoming interaction with someone that you’ve been avoiding. Anxious thoughts can begin to spiral our minds into a whirlwind of uncertain beliefs about what the future holds. It’s a rabbit hole that many of us have been down and can relate to!

By practicing yoga, you give your mind the launchpad that it needs to jump out of that tornado of anxiety and into a happier state of mind. Moving your body is a key component of breaking through anxious thoughts or emotions. Since yoga requires extreme focus, it is difficult to think about the stresses of life while in your class or session. The gap between your mind and body is now diminished.

Yoga allows you to feel whole. Your body, mind, heart, and soul are now one. The flow of energy through the movements of your body allows your anxious mind to become quiet. The voice of your monkey mind that once influenced every thought that you had now sounds faint, or even silent. As you perform different yoga positions, your mind becomes clear and anxiety slowly drifts away.

2.Control Over Your Breath

There is an insurmountable amount of power in your breath. Our breathing has a direct impact on how we can feel emotionally. Our nervous system can become heightened, or relaxed, based on our breathing.

Yoga frequently integrates different breath patterns into each session. Breathing into certain stretches allows your body to relax more and stretch deeper. After a thorough yoga class with focused breathing patterns, your body can be permeated by feelings of euphoria, joy, and oneness. Breathing deeply reminds our minds that we are living, breathing humans on this planet that we call Earth. It provides a greater perspective on life and reminds us to be humble.

Controlling your breath is a great way to help treat anxiety. You can also integrate different breathing exercises into your normal routine outside of your yoga classes to help encourage calmness throughout your nervous system and being.

3.Support

The emotional support that you can feel from a yoga class is potent, even when no words are spoken. Whether it be a group class, or 1-on-1, there is a level of positive energy that is nearly tangible which you can experience. This is especially true for group yoga classes. You can experience a deep connection to community when practicing yoga in a group setting classes. While expressing yourself physically through yoga positions, you are also expressing yourself emotionally through energy and breath. The energy within the room slowly blends into one cohesive sense of support. You then realize that your yoga class is your community, and everyone will stand with you to help support you.

Yoga instructors hold the space for all to come and express their emotions through movement within a class. You can set different intentions for each class that you take. There is no judgment when expressing yourself during yoga. You are always supported. Consider trying out a local yoga class near you to help squash any anxiety that you’re experiencing.

“Everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about.” – Brad Meltzer

You are not alone in how you feel. Yoga groups are here to support you in your journey to healing.

Final Thoughts

Yoga is a powerful wellness practice that you can add to your routine to help decrease anxiety. Through movement, breath, and support, you can break through old limiting beliefs that are negatively impacting your life. There are a variety of yoga techniques and styles that you can explore to find the one that calls to you the most. Some, like ashtanga, are more physically demanding than others, while some styles, like restorative and yin, are more focused on stillness and relaxation. Whatever your needs are, you can find a yoga style that will meet your level and pace.

Anxiety may be something that never officially ‘goes away’ in your life. Through wellness practices, like yoga, we can recenter ourselves and calm our minds, allowing up to truly experience life in the present. Experiencing and practicing yoga reminds us how supported we are in our community and in the universe. Yoga helps provide us with the greatest opportunity to be the best versions of ourselves and experience life optimally.

Week 6: Gratitude

gratitude

It’s easy to get grumpy.

We live in a culture of “get more!” and “look good” and “get more likes on Instagram!” When we’re in a hustle-hustle life, we can often feel like we’re constantly falling short. Our culture’s cult of celebrity and the shininess of social media makes it harder than to stay grounded reality. After all, how easy is it to feel happy in our own less than perfect lives when we are inundated with images of vibrant, healthy couples oozing romance while on an exotic vacation? Or – for the yogis out there – when we see image after image of sunk-kissed, windswept yogis performing impossible arm balances on a beach?

We start to believe that we are lacking something that everyone else seems to have.

First of all, friends, let’s start by understanding that the perfect lives on social media are a fabrication. Now, I know we know this in our minds. We are smart critters. But even though we intellectually understand that social media is often “life advertising,” there’s an emotional part of our brain that doesn’t register this intellectual insight. Social media targets our emotional center, where we can be susceptible to feelings of unworthiness, loneliness, and isolation. So if you’re wondering why Instagram is making you feel bad (even when you know better), know that you’re not alone…and that’s kind of what it’s designed to do.

But lucky for us, there is an antidote. It’s super simple, and it’s free.

It’s gratitude.

When we start focusing on what we have, rather than what we don’t, our emotional perspective almost instantaneously shifts. It’s like one of those negative space drawings, where all of a sudden you see two faces rather than a vase. Although our situation hasn’t changed, we can see it from a different perspective. And all the good stuff that we have suddenly comes into view.

I was reading the Yoga Sutra earlier, and there is a niyama (guidelines for living) that resonates: santosha, or contentment. Patanjali writes that, “By contentment, supreme joy is gained.” (Translation: Swami Satchidananda). Practicing gratitude is a radical act of self-care and self-validation.

“By contentment, supreme joy is gained.”

Translation by Swami Satchidananda

This week, your task: Create a daily gratitude practice.

For me, I do this practice by writing out at least five things for which I’m grateful before bed. It can be simple: I have been grateful for my breath, grateful for my morning coffee, and grateful that I live in an era of antibiotics.

You may choose to do your practice when you first get up, or to put things for which you are grateful on sticky notes and put them around the house to be reminded of them throughout the day. It may be a simple meditation, in which you reflect on your gratitude list internally. However you decide to do it, the idea is to spend at least two minutes to bring all the good stuff in your life into the light.

Ready…and….Go!

As a treat, here is my non-Instaglamourous morning face 😉

Rachel before full coffee.

Week 3: Meditate

meditate

Meditation.
We’re gonna make this really accessible.
At least two minutes a day.

Meditation has shown to be incredibly beneficial for your mental state and for stress. Getting into the practice of mindfulness is a relatively low hanging fruit in the health world. We just have to shut off the monkey mind (“one more thing to do!”) and get our butts into those chair (or meditation cushions).
Now, you can do as long as you want, but I’m going to propose that you have a dedicated sit for at least two minutes a day. That means, butt in chair (or on floor) and setting a timer.

Grossly speaking, you can meditate in two different ways: open meditation or focus meditation.

I recommend a focus meditation, in which you choose something (word, your breath, sensation, etc.) to bring your attention to. When your attention drifts, you return back to that object of attention.

Open meditation is where you create a loose awareness of the present moment. (Attention may be prone to wander in this kind.)

Apps can help: 10%, Calm.

I have a bunch of meditations on this site you’re welcome to use.

There are also free meditations online, and at DoYogaWithMe.

Gather your resource and let’s get busy being still!


Why Chaos Is Good News: How To Navigate Change

Man in Free Fall

I have uprooted my life in Vancouver, BC to follow my heart on a grand adventure. YAY! Fun, excitement and grand romance!

And….terrifying.

In taking this wild ride, I kicked out the support struts from under my own foundation. I’ve uprooted my job, access to friends, familiar surroundings, material possessions, and my happy routines.

Despite the romance of adventure, I feel like a cat in a strange house: ears back, tail down, looking for corner in which to hide.

We all know this space: let’s call it free fall.

Free fall happens when we change jobs, fall in love, break up, move across the country, get a divorce, get married, have kids, or undergo any manner of “major change.” Free fall also happens in little ways in our daily lives. We feel it when we screw up at work, fight with a loved one, fall short as a parent, or lose our sense of self-worth.

“Fear of death carries its own essence and predominates [the consciousness of] even the wise.”

Patanjali Sutra 2.9, Yoga International

Yoga philosophy tells us that fear of death (abhinivesa) is natural, even in the wise. (We can understand this “death” as both literal and metaphorical.) However, to live the soulful lives that we deeply want, we must be willing to face death again and again. We must risk dying to our ego, our attachments, our perceptions, and our habits.

“Chaos should be regarded as very good news.”

Pema Chodron

When we enter free fall – whether it’s a major upheaval or a minor tremor – we can regard it as good news. Free fall exposes our dependence on the external world – possessions, job titles, other people’s opinions, or even relationships – for our sense of wholeness. When the “bottom falls out,” we have the opportunity to recognize that there is in fact, another bottom. Beyond our ego, there is something that lies within us that is stable, consistent, loving, and whole. But usually we are so busy fortifying our sense of safety with the immediate stuff (jobs, possessions, praise) that we don’t recognize and our deeper Reserves.

“Only to the extent that we expose ourselves over and over to annihilation can that which is indestructible in us be found.”

Pema Chodron

When we practice yoga, we are – in a sense – practicing free fall. We come to our mats to create a space where we can exist – for a time – beyond the habitual identifications with our jobs, habits, and even family dynamics. We look across the room at other travellers practicing on the mat; we don’t need to know what they do or even their names: we are simply fellow travellers in Presence. When we give ourselves this breathing room – in a sense, creating our own “little death” – we create a space to arrive freshly in our lives as if for the first time.

It takes enormous courage to willingly come into Free Fall, to brush against death in order to dismantle the comfortable structures that can obfuscate our deeper selves. The next time that you find yourself in a Free Fall, can you – with sweetness and self-care – breathe into that wide open space of uncertainty?

“We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time. ”

TS Eliot

Filling Up Your Energy: Four Tips to Slow Down

We have a cultural habit of high productivity and effort, and many well intended people end up burnt out or grappling with restlessness. Over time, even the most “advanced” or seasoned yoga practitioners must re-learn the importance of staying present. If you often feel like you’re walking one pace faster than you physically can, perhaps it’s time to consider the amount of enjoyment you have in what you’re doing. While progress may feel stilted when we slow down, ultimately our lives become more enjoyable when we can detach ourselves from achievement, and tune into our experiences instead.

When you first approach any endeavour, start by setting your attention on a thought that encourages an attitude of open interest. When we draw on our inner resources of breath, presence, and current awareness, we are much less likely to become entangled ahead of ourselves. Whether we know our own “saboteur” well or not, there is always an ebb and flow in progress. The more present we stay, the less likely we are to find ourselves stuck in a familiar dilemma or discouraging set back.

Try these simple practices in the morning, before an important interaction, or any time during the day you feel yourself picking up momentum towards becoming scattered or anxious.

Notice your physical space.

Most meditation techniques guide you to begin by following your breath, but I find this challenging in particularly bustling environments. When my attention feels fragmented, it helps to focus on just a few objects in my immediate vicinity.

Pay attention to the specific colours and objects around you that draw your interest.

If the first few observations you make feel distressing, look instead for a striking object that peaks your interest. Keep it simple at first: a design, a child’s expression or a colour palette that relaxes you.

Tune into your body.

Get to know what helps you personally stay present, and brings your focus from scattered to centered. Some people wiggle their toes to connect to their feet, while others begin a deep belly breath. Personally, a few shoulder rolls or simple movements help me release any tension or emotions I may be feeling.

Remember your original motive.

Use your cognitive thinking skills to do a quick check in. Is it time to take a break from my efforts, change environments or connect with an outside source to help me get back in my groove? As much as we like to build our ability to “tune in”, none of us need to tackle life alone. Increasing your connection to the support around you can renew your enthusiasm and offer a fresh perspective. We all need those moments with a friend, pet, or nature to appreciate and balance the momentum of our lives.

Ultimately, we are creating our lives and how we want to feel in them, day by day. We become more energized by consciously creating more enjoyment as we navigate changes and meeting the needs of the day. Whatever your next endeavour, make sure you don’t speed towards completion, but pause along the way. Letting the energy flow towards where you are headed by staying present will feel more rewarding than urgently rushing through our days.