There is no doubt today about the effects of Yoga in the management of stress, which has even published in evidence studies within the Western Psychology field, such as the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology.
In the society we live in, where the emphasis is on how productive we are, we are forgetting to pay attention to our body signals as stress builds up bringing with it a good range of chronic illnesses. Stress damages our bodies and minds, impacts our cognition and emotions, and breaks down our immune function.
For people like me, with an autoimmune condition, it is very important to have tools at hand that help us manage our condition and prevent flare ups. What has been a new discovery for me in recent years is the way we see stress. I used to see stress as something that happened to me, something external I could not control, and I had to react to the the best way I could. However, through yoga and meditation and learning to observe my thoughts and emotions, we can find patterns in our behaviour and mindset that actually make us realize how it is actually ourselves creating and adding stress to our bodies. We can then learn to be less reactive and more responsive to external events.
After long periods of stress, when it becomes chronic we enter in a vicious circle where we become even more sensitive to it, we are then less resilient, less able to control our minds and emotions, less able to make the right choices for our minds and bodies.
There are different aspects of Yoga and Yoga therapy that help us to connect with our nervous system, such as the use of breath work techniques, mindfulness or developing body and mind awareness. This connection, obtained as well through practices such as Yoga Nidra or Restorative yoga. we can break the vicious circle by altering the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system.
I invite you to find out more about this in this blog where I will be sharing some tools to help you identify and correct your stress levels and more importantly connect with your innermost and look after yourself the way you need it.