Have you been told yoga benefits your mental health?
This is often told to us, but we lack the understanding of why. It can often seem too spiritual, too woo woo or only for flexible people. This is far from the truth.
Yoga is a practice of poses, meditation and breathing. A lot of people view yoga as a practice to build strength and flexibility and, while it can; the more impactful side you can experience are the benefits of yoga to your mental health and wellbeing.
Yoga is all about the science of the mind
Asanas (poses) were not included in this ancient practice at first. It’s amazing that this practice has lasted over 5,000 years. I am cautious of taking away from the meaning of yoga, but it is undeniable that when you peel back the layers of a yoga practice, you can see how all its elements can help with the modern day stressors that we subject ourselves to.
Anxiety is just as much physical as it is psychological. While there are many effective treatments offered in Western medicine, such as therapy and medication, there are also a variety of other treatments that can be used in conjunction. One of these is yoga.
Many people seek out yoga because they don’t like the side effects of medication, or perhaps because they like the idea of a holistic approach. For me, it was both of the above – but also, the physical symptoms I experienced were often debilitating, and I felt that doing more than just talk therapy alone, and including my body, would be beneficial. As I learned more about the nervous system and the mind-body connection, I have been intrigued about this route of living.
Yoga practice as a whole
In fact when you look at yoga as a whole practice, rather than just the poses that you see on social media, there are many similarities in its framework to the modern day treatments.
For example, yoga incorporates mindfulness, breath regulation, cognitive reframing, concentration and teaches people the ability to regulate their stress response, increase their stress tolerance, increase their resilience and positive coping mechanisms to relax.
When you are in a heightened state of stress and anxiety, you know how awful your body can feel. Yoga may be something that can help some people. But it also might not be for everyone and that is okay. Yoga is just one way that you can incorporate your body into the work that you do.
In this post, I share 5 of the non-physical ways that yoga benefits mental health that I have experienced and would love for you to be open to experience too.
Yoga is the journey of the Self, through the Self, to the Self
#1 Increase body awareness/mind-body connection
One main benefit of yoga for mental health is its ability to increase the mind-body connection. Stepping on your mat and practising yoga isn’t just going through the motions of poses for the sake of it. Moving through these poses, with your breath allows you to bring yourself into the present moment.
When starting with a teacher, whether online or in a class, the queues to breathe and move in certain ways allows you to connect with yourself and notice things you wouldn’t normally notice. We spend so much time on autopilot and moving and doing the same things, yoga gives us the chance to move in different ways and notice things within our bodies. You start to notice how it moves, what works and what doesn’t, how it feels, how it is connected.
We start to tune in and learn about our limitations, challenges and even the judgements we place on ourselves.
Moving and tuning into our breath allows us to connect with ourselves, whether you are aware of it at the start or not. We spend more time with ourselves and our bodies, without distractions such as social media and television, learning about ourselves and eventually moving with more compassion and less judgement. This is something that is widely neglected, as we rush through lives, working full time jobs and disassociating with television and social media. Yoga provides a space for the complete opposite of that.
Yoga allows us to strengthen our relationship with our body, ability to listen to your body more and create a new appreciation for ourselves.
I have to be honest, and when I first started practicing yoga, I was impatient and frustrated and just couldn’t see how people benefited from it. This could be partly because I wasn’t allowing myself to open up to the practice, or to be in a quiet room for a small period of time. I was always rushing, always on the go, always with a racing mind. It just didn’t fit. I couldn’t stand being quiet or trapped in something for 60 minutes.
But then I tried again and tried a different class and teacher. And something just clicked. (Not right away, lol but for some reason I persisted). Eventually, I was able to tune more into the practice, and the one game changer for me was the breathing. Now that has become something that I take everywhere with me and use constantly in my daily life.
I was so disconnected to my body, while also experiencing very intense physical anxiety symptoms. The movement helped me to loosen up a bit and the breath has really helped me anchor myself. This did take time though. And personally, learning about the history and science behind it helped me stick around long enough to experience the benefits of yoga for mental health myself.
#2 Reduce anxiety and stress
Yoga is split up into a variety of elements that make it one practice or a lifestyle. This includes dhyana (contemplation and meditation), pranayama (breathwork), asana (movement) and a variety of off the mat practices that make up the 8 limbs of yoga. When you break down the different elements, you can see just how impactful it is for stress and anxiety, and how we can learn this lifestyle from India. Here are some examples of a few common elements and how they can benefit your mind and body.
Meditation
Meditation enables you to fully engross yourself into the present moment. Anxiety and stress if often accumulated form worries of the past and future. Practising being in the present moment can be a great practice to adopt, and help you connect to yourself and the world better. It will also enable you to begin to witness your thoughts and observe them, rather than become wrapped up in them.
Breath
Each movement is linked with our breath. Breath work is beneficial in and out of a yoga practice for many reasons, including increasing your energy, awareness and presence. One of the biggest things breath work has helped me with, is easing my stress and anxiety. It has become one of my biggest go to practices, not just on a bad day, but as part of my morning routine too.
Many of us go through life stressed and anxious. This means that our breathing changes. When stressed, we tend to take shorter, shallower breaths. This sends signals to our body and keeps us in that stress loop, and if activated, puts us into fight or flight mode. This is a natural response that our bodies undergo when there is a threat, whether physical or psychological. But sometimes we can find ourselves in a constant or prolonged state or fight or flight when there is no physical or immediate threat to us. By learning to adopt different breathing techniques that are integrated into our yoga practice, we can calm our parasympathetic nervous system, which takes us out of fight or flight mode and into the relaxation response.
Mindful movement
There is also emerging science that suggests that we hold tension in our bodies, from things like stress, anxiety and trauma. By practising low impact, somatic movements, we can begin to slowly release that tension in our bodies, which will help us to relax more and shed some of the weight of stress and anxiety.
Rhythmic movement is also a greay way to regulate your nervous system.
#3 Taking time for yourself away from screens, social media and material things
How often do you ever stop and do something for yourself? That does not involve being in front of a screen? I’m not saying it’s a bad thing, I love a good Netflix binge! However, I find it very hard to pull myself away from things like my TV or social media.
When you adopt a regular yoga practice, whether it is once or four times a week, it takes me away from the materialistic things of the world and into my own world. A chance to indulge in peace, movement and mindfulness.
An added benefit of yoga for mental health is if you go to a community class. you get to connect with others who are on similar journeys to you. This can be a real game changer in your life. Community and a sense of belonging is a vital human need. It can be difficult if there are people in your life who are not on the same path as you. This connection can be valuable.
#4 Stay present
We tend to spend a lot of time in the past or future. Or anywhere that is not the present moment, for that matter. This kind of thinking can lead to unhappiness and a lot of anxiety. This is because it brings on stress, worry and a lot of what if’s. This is a huge benefit of yoga for mental health. When we are not in the present, it is typically because we are worried about something in the past or future. There is a line we often cross from productive reflection into putting out bodies into a long-term stressed state.
The present moment is what is happening right now, because that’s all we really have. It’s the moment we are spending time in and have control over. Being in the present can help increase happiness, awareness and focus.
As mentioned earlier in this article, there is huge emphasis on breath in a yoga practice. This is a great way to help bring your awareness to the present moment. Focusing on your body and your breath, allows you to indulge in the present moment. This distracts you from your negative thought patterns.
Yoga teaches you to become a witness to your thoughts. This helps you to become more detached from them and stop letting them control you. All these can add up to an improved quality of life.
#5 Increase compassion
A great benefit of yoga for mental health is your sense of compassion. Not just for yourself, but for others, too. During our yoga practice, we are invited to move freely, without judgement or comparison. As you start to reduce the stress and suffering in your mind, listen to your body and learn more about yourself as you practice, you increase your appreciation for yourself and your body. Over time, this compassion that you have cultivated moves off the mat into everyday life.
Growing interest and science in how yoga can help with stress and anxiety.
There has to be caution, as to not take away from the meaning of another culture’s ancient practices. If you can uphold its integrity and use it, you can greatly benefit from it.
There are many research studies that are being conducted. These show the benefits that a yoga intervention can have on anxiety, stress and depression.
For example, one study in Germany gathered a group of distressed women. They were to take a 90 minute class twice a week for 3 months. Compared to the control group who took no classes, there was a reported improvement of 30% in their anxiety. Also, 50% in their depression.
For me, there are many benefits of yoga on mental health. What non-physical lessons have you learned from your yoga practice? I hope that this post will bring some awareness to the benefits of yoga for mental health that you can start to feel yourself. If you are struggling, perhaps add some journaling on to the end of your practise and take a little time to write about each experience.
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