3 Ways Yoga Reduces Anxiety

3 Ways Yoga Reduces Anxiety | https://www.hannahhepworth.com

Recently I’ve rediscovered yoga and have found numerous health benefits as a result.  Yoga really can help reduce anxiety! In the past I have tried yoga here and there and it just didn’t seem like my thing.  The positions were a little extreme for my incredibly inflexible body and honestly I felt impatient with the slow movements and felt like if I was going to spend 45 minutes doing a workout I better be sweating hard and it just didn’t seem worth the time.

Over the past few months I’ve tried to make exercise more of a priority as it has wonderful anti-stress and anxiety affects.  I’ve done pilates videos at home and love them but wanted something different.  I got back into running and it just left me feeling depleted instead of invigorated.

I have a few friends who teach yoga and have been told multiple times that I should try it out.  I hopped on youtube and checked out a few yoga channels and found one that struck a chord.  Yoga With Adriene is my new favorite youtube channel!  Check her out.

I’ve been doing her 30 day yoga challenge and am over halfway through it and I can honestly say I’ve finally found a workout that I look forward to doing.

After I do a yoga workout I feel renewed, calm and relaxed.  This has been incredibly helpful for stress and anxiety and I want to share specifically 3 ways that yoga reduces anxiety!

Slow Down: 

I used to be annoyed that yoga moved so slowly.  By nature I’m sort of a quick moving… abrupt… person. I’m always rushing and always in a hurry even if I don’t need to be. This just adds to stress levels as you can imagine.  Yoga has taught me that its okay to move slow.  I’ve learned to appreciate the slow fluid movements of yoga and it has begun to translate into the rest of my life.  In a way it puts the breaks on your nervous system.  Instead of feeling all high strung and jittery it really helps you relax and become more in touch with your movements.

Breath Deeply:

It’s common for those with anxiety to breathe shallow, short breaths.  You might not even realize it, but when you’re stressed, you’re also tense.  When you’re tense you breathe with your chest and you breathe really shallow. Yoga instructors are great at reminding you to breathe deeply as you’re doing the different movements and after only about 25 minutes of yoga you can get your breathing back into a good deep rhythm, rather than quick shallow breaths.

Invigorates:

When you’ve been run down with stress and anxiety for too long it gets really hard to do intense exercise. It can actually harm you more than help you if you’re in a real state of being run down.  I don’t think that exercise should be something that makes you feel run down and depleted.  I think you should feel even better afterwards.  Yoga is the perfect gentle exercise to get your body moving.  You get some nice stretching, some toning, deep breathing, you still get your lymph fluids flowing without running you down! Then as your body heals you can step up your exercise to be more intense.

As my body has healed over the years I now can handle more than just yoga.  I enjoy doing kickboxing videos or riding a stationary bike.  Now that I’m pregnant, 36 weeks today to be exact, I’ve been enjoying some different prenatal yoga and pilates videos, but I still hop on the stationary bike when I want to get my heart racing and the sweat dripping!  Even during pregnancy it’s so important to keep your body limber and toned to help make your delivery as smooth as possible.  Exercise is also a great anti-inflammatory and helps to reduce anxiety and depression.  In fact, it should be part of the foundation of any stress and anxiety management program!

Have you tried yoga?  Do you have any free yoga resources to share?  Let us know in the comments below!

2 thoughts on “3 Ways Yoga Reduces Anxiety”

  1. Such a good article! I love yoga for its anti-stress properties as well as for the toning and flexibility I have achieved. Thanks for posting!

    1. Thanks Melissa,

      I’m so glad you enjoyed it and have found yoga to be helpful for you too!
      🙂
      Hannah

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