The Benefits Of Yoga To Reduce Stress
Yoga is so much more than just stretching exercises to improve physical health. It is an ancient practice providing a variety of benefits such as improving health, healing, relieving aches and pains. It also prevents sickness, improves mental health and can reduce stress. Yoga gives you a boost in physical, psychological, and spiritual wellness.
Yoga establishes a mind-to-body connection through the performance of physical poses that require controlled breathing and meditation. It even makes you generally happier with life. Let’s look at the benefits of yoga to reduce stress.
Yoga increases happiness and reduces stress
Practicing yoga triggers the release of serotonin, dopamine, oxytocin, and gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) within your body. These chemicals make you livelier, creative, and more energetic. Once in this state of mind, all tension, stressful thoughts, and worries are eliminated. You remain positive and happy throughout the day. The reason why exponents of yoga firmly assert its stress-relieving benefits is because yoga can effectively reduce cortisol (the stress hormone) levels. While it lowers cortisol in your body, it increases your brain’s feel-good factor to elevate mood.
Yoga helps detoxify your system
The stretching, twisting, and compressing postures of Yoga along with controlled breathing helps detoxify your internal organs. It improves your body’s metabolic activity making you feel better thus reducing stress. Yoga also strengthens your primary and secondary stabilizing muscles. This helps your body achieve better balance and makes you more conscious of your movements in daily life. Yoga exercises, benefit core and spinal strength, improving your posture. As your body improves in so many aspects, so does your well-being which means you won’t feel too tensed all the time and this is exactly what you need to reduce stress.
Yoga helps your body heal and recover faster, and feel relaxed
Besides making your body strong and supple, yoga can help it heal and recover from injuries, pains, and aches, faster. It effectively reduces your sensitivity and perception of pain. Yogic meditation and mindfulness directly impact the brain’s parietal lobe in charge of sensation. The parietal lobe is also responsible for limb movements, language, and pain. Yoga activates your body’s parasympathetic system to help you wind down and relax especially in times of stress.
Yoga lowers anxiety levels
According to research, 12 sessions of Hatha Yoga can reduce stress, anxiety, and depression. Yoga improves blood circulation, decrease blood pressure and aids digestion. All of these contribute to a more upbeat feeling in both body and mind. Moreover, breathing during yoga strengthens the heart and lungs while reducing lactic acid build-up. With deep breathing techniques, you increase oxygen intake and facilitate the removal of carbon dioxide to detoxify your body. Since breathing impacts your mind, yoga can thus prove useful in contributing to both an energetic body and a peaceful mind.
Yoga alleviates muscle stress and tension
The main cause of muscles stress and tension are poor posture, stiff and rigid muscles, and inflexible connective tissues. This increases stress in the body. But yoga can help you release all that muscle tension and stress. It does this by helping your body relax and making your movements more fluid. It stretches and lengthens your muscles which increases your flexibility and maneuverability.
Yoga instills self-compassion
Sometimes you might not feel too good about yourself. Many people struggle with self-compassion but there is no reason to indulge in self-criticism when you aren’t in a good mood. This only lowers your self-esteem and increases stress impacting your mental and physical health. On such days, yoga can help you with introspection to allow you to develop self-compassion. Self-compassion will help you reduce negative emotions like self-loathing and anger. By practicing yoga, you improve your attitude towards yourself and others as well.
Yoga improves your sleep quality
Sleep deprivation is one of the biggest contributors to stress. Research says people who practiced yoga and meditation fall asleep faster, stay asleep longer, and feel well-rested after waking up. So, strike a yoga pose the next time you have trouble with sleeping. Yoga boosts melatonin (the sleep hormone) production within your body which regulates your sleep and waking cycles. Practice some yoga just before going to bed to clear away stress and increase your chances of falling into a deep, sound sleep.
Yoga reduces Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
As you know by now, practicing yoga promotes relaxation and stress-relief. This produces a great calming effect on an overly-stimulated nervous system. Research also suggests that people suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder can reduce their symptoms with the help and benefits of yoga. Besides positively impacting health, the mystical aspect of Yoga has its spiritual benefits too. It helps you unburden your mind, be calm, happy and content with your life.
