How does Yoga help us to overcome anxiety? For some people, - TopicsExpress



          

How does Yoga help us to overcome anxiety? For some people, life is a nice dream; for others, it is a daily nightmare. For most people, it depends on the circumstances. No matter which category we fall into, each of us has to perform daily maintenance on our mental, emotional and physical health. Yoga is part of a larger system which can be used to prevent anxiety, panic attacks, stress, and depression. If you look at a list of symptoms for anxiety, they are very diverse, but Yoga has many techniques to address each one of them. Yoga is much like a tool box for prevention and control of anxiety. Breathing Techniques If you suddenly feel short of breath and feel yourself go into panic, there is a range of yoga breathing techniques that you can use to bring your body and your mind back to calm within minutes. Relaxation In order to change the stress response in the body and in the mind it is necessary for the body to become familiar with relaxation. Here is an area where Yoga clearly differs from simple physical exercise. Training the muscles and the nervous system to respond to the request for relaxation can be very helpful in turning off the stress response. Self-observation Another aspect of yoga that is very different from just simple exercise is that it focuses on self-awareness and self-observation. Any physical exercise helps to reduce stress, but self observation is the key to changing the patterns of repetitive thoughts, emotions and tensions that we tend to establish for ourselves throughout our experience of life. Mindfulness and Yoga meditation The heart of Yoga practice resides in self-awareness and mindfulness. The idea of mindfulness is complete engagement in the present moment. It is a state where you are not thinking, reflecting, judging, or deciding, but are instead simply experiencing the moment without the confusion, distortions and emotions associated with the past or the future. This is what creates a space for change and what allows us to break free from old patterns and heal. The promise of Yoga As Barbara Stoller Miller writes in her translation of the Yoga- Sutra: “The Path to freedom consists of a gradual removal of misconceptions that allows for fresh perception....The way of yoga is not a simple, linear path. Rather, it is a method involving a radical change in the way we experience the world and perceive ourselves. It gives us techniques with which to understand our own thought processes and to discover our true human entity.” The promise of Yoga is that it offers us a path of self-discovery, self-improvement and an amazing range of tools that can be used almost anywhere to allow us to rediscover inner peace, confidence and joy. Written by Claire Phillips Claire is a teacher of Vitality Yoga. Vitality Yoga covers a range of tools and techniques which are based on classical Yoga but it also adds a little more, including principles from Traditional Chinese Medicine, Acupuncture and Western Science to address the needs of the modern person.
Posted on: Thu, 23 Jan 2014 02:30:00 +0000

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