It’s challenging to calm down your nervous system. When you’re in a state of fight or flight and panic, your thinking becomes cloudy and it’s difficult to be logical. You may not considering yoga as an escape or a solution to anxiety. However, once you actually pick up an old yoga mat from your sibling’s room and start doing some poses with intention, you notice a decrease in cortisol production. Why is that? Well, slow yoga that involves deep breathing is an excellent way to notify your body that you’re not facing a threat. Instead, you’re connecting with your mind and body to engage in calming activity. Practicing yoga is effective in lowering your heart rate, stabilizing your breathing, and bringing you back to the present through its pacifying properties.
For example, when you do downward dog, a pose in which your body is inverted outwards and your head is close to the mat, blood flows to your head, enabling you to see more clearly, as the “brain fog” and sadness that is typically accompanied with anxiety lessens because of a release of tension.
Apart from yoga’s ability to stimulate and calm the nervous system on a chemical level, yoga can also help you physically feel better by “massaging” the areas of your body that carry the most stress. When you do certain stretches like the triangle pose, for instance, and you feel tense in your calves, you’re giving your lower legs their full range of motion back. Such poses promote a calming aura by relaxing your muscles. By doing vinyasa poses, or those that link movement with breath, like the sun salutation, you’re focusing on something other than your one-track mind: the way you feel.
It’s incredibly important to bring awareness to how you’re reacting to certain situations, as well as how your body reacts as a result. Yoga accomplishes exactly that. So, next time you’re stressed, consider doing yoga. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain.