One of the definitions of yoga says that yoga is a process that is about maintaining a life balance and enabling you to achieve full control over all states of our consciousness.
This happens through:
- The ability to control your own body, senses, whims and drives in a way that would help us and help in physical, mental and spiritual development.
- Balance, consolidation of the physical, mental and spiritual.
Yoga is a system of self-improvement and self-discipline, which is to prepare us to know our true nature and live in accordance with it. When we practice yoga, we learn how to restrain such phenomena as thoughts, emotions and impressions. The tradition of yoga says that one should control all phenomena of consciousness – the negative ones, but also the positive ones. Staying in this case does not mean suppress, but control it so that it does not take our mind.
Yoga gives tips on how to control the chaos that we have in our head. The chaos of thoughts, beliefs and desires. It helps to overcome internal blockages, to understand the fatal influence of the ego on the life of every human being. Teaches you how to deal with the lack of acceptance for unavoidable changes. All these changes, blockages and expectations cause stress. So the more conscious a person becomes, the less he is exposed to stress.
Properly exercised yoga is a process that looks as follows:
- Yamy (moral recommendation) and Niyama (spiritual recommendations),
- Asanas, Mudras and Bandhas (body positions, gestures and glandular practices),
- Pranayama (practice with breath and energy),
- Pratyahara (psychology, mind exercises, meditation).
In this way, practiced yoga is a panacea for any stress-related ailments – physical and mental, because stress is nothing but the relationship between our abilities and the requirements of the situation, characterized by the lack of psychophysical balance, which is what we are trying to do on yoga.
Stress gives physical symptoms such as: accelerated heart rhythm, digestive disorders, headaches, abdominal pain, hand tremors, lockjaw, muscle tension and psychological symptoms such as depression and sadness, or vice versa – extreme nervousness over time transforming into aggression, feelings of anxiety and anxiety, depression, trouble sleeping, concentration and memory.
Without a doubt, stress is bad
It has an adverse effect on our body and it is in our interest to learn how to function in such a way, regardless of any external factors, to keep the level of stress at the lowest possible level.
Long-term persistent stress, and thus unstable psychophysical balance over time can lead to various types of psychosomatic disorders such as: hypertension, asthma, peptic ulcer disease, atopic dermatitis, ulcerative enteritis, hyperthyroidism, rheumatism (rheumatoid arthritis), some types of obesity and allergy.
The diseases listed above are serious ailments that cause that the comfort of our lives is significantly reduced, thus causing additional stress.
Therefore, it is worth to learn the methods of coping with the stress offered by the yoga system, because it is a complete system, and the implementation of life will result in inner peace, a healthy body and spirit.
For starters, asanas
It’s the first thing you can do for yourself when you feel overly stressed. While doing the exercises, however, try to be very attentive, precisely and with the attention to detail, follow the instructions of the yoga teacher. This will make the mind focused on the present activity and will not be affected by stressful thoughts and emotions. A properly conducted yoga session will give you strength and energy, but it will also relax and relax.
It is also worth paying attention to the breath
The breath of a stressed man is shallow, without the diaphragm. The body receives too little oxygen and it gets tired faster. There is a feeling of tiredness, headaches and general irritability. This leads to deterioration of intellectual performance and lowering immunity. Therefore, to enjoy health for a long time, we should start with conscious breathing. Then the whole organism works more efficiently.
With each breath, oxygen-saturated air gets into the lungs, and carbon dioxide is removed with each exhalation. This cycle repeats about 20 thousand. times a day, 12-14 times per minute. Even so, you may be hypoxic when you breathe shallow (only with lung tips). Then only a small amount of oxygen reaches the lower part of the lungs. The slower and deeper we breathe the better for us. Usually diaphragmatic breathing is practiced on yoga.
The diaphragm is the muscle that separates the lungs from the abdominal cavity. While inhaling, she should lower herself making room for air filled lungs and, while exhaling, hover up and press the lungs from below to help them empty. Exercising the diaphragmatic breath we breathe only with our noses. The nose is a kind of filter and heats the air before it reaches the lungs. Try to breathe the diaphragm every day, because it allows you to use more lung capacity, providing the body with more oxygen. Your breathing will become deeper and more regular, and you will notice how more peace and balance comes into your life.
Relaxation
Every decent yoga session should be ended with a short relaxation. It is a kind of culmination of the whole practice and a reward for efforts on the mat. It allows to draw conclusions from the practice on the basis of how the body reacted to individual items, but also draws attention to ourselves at the same time not requiring us. Gradually, with each subsequent exhalation, it introduces us into a state of increasing relaxation.
Kinds of relaxation are many. However, it is best to start with the relaxation of the muscular system. We feel then that our muscles become heavy. The sense of muscle weight corresponds to the state of relaxation – this is the most basic relaxation. The next option is to relax the vegetative system. We then experience physical warmth in various parts of the body that are not directly managed by the conscious will. In addition to the state of relaxation, we build a greater self-consciousness that is the path to inner harmony.
Meditation
The next step of a man striving for psychophysical balance and stress reduction may be meditation, or cleansing the mind of any thoughts and putting him in a state of calm and quiet observation. Meditation adds energy, improves memory and, above all, makes you immune to stress. Various meditative techniques are now successfully used in psychotherapy.
The latest clinical trials confirm the beneficial effects of meditation on health. It has been observed that it lowers blood pressure, reduces heart rate and slows metabolism. It can be used to treat hypertension, cardiac arhythmias and insomnia, relieve migraines, chronic pain and depression. Above all, however, meditation, changing the frequency of brain waves, has a beneficial effect on the state of mind. It reduces anxiety and increases the level of serotonin in the brain.
Stress is an inseparable element of our life, without a minimum dose of stress, a person would not be properly stimulated to develop. However, long-lasting and intensive can contribute to a decrease in the efficiency of the whole organism. It is therefore worth taking care to find time in daily struggles for activities that cause the level of tension to decrease, the breath slows down and we feel happy.
