Stress puts immense tension on the body, both mentally and physically. One way to ease that stress is through the practice of yoga. Yoga is a practice which teaches one relaxation both mentally and physically through the process of different poses and breathing techniques. The physical positions your body is put into alongside the impressive breathing exercises truly relaxes the body into a less stressful state of being.
Ever since I was young, whenever I got mad or worked up about something, my parents would tell me to take deep breaths and count to ten with my eyes clothes. Although my head strong self wouldn’t admit that at the time, it really did help to relax me. Proper breathing can truly help lower blood pressure levels and calm the body. It can also help improve the circulation of both blood and oxygen, and can also improve the strength of your muscles. By pairing proper breathing with physical movement or, in other words, yoga, can significantly lower one’s stress level and help improve one’s the overall well-being.
Randomized control trials have been conducted to determine the truth behind this idea. All cases were analyzed carefully due to each person’s current health state, how long they did yoga for, and what their outcomes were. Overall, the results were very positive and in favor of the idea that yoga helps reduce stress. Apparently most of the subjects reported immediate satisfactory results that showed improvement on their stress level. In this particular study, follow up tests were done. Although no significant data was reported from the follow up test, nothing bad was reported. Could this specific trial suffer from the file drawer problem?
Stress is an extremely uncomfortable feeling for anyone to experience. Through the practice of yoga and learning proper breathing, anyone can lower their stress level.
Bibliography:
Chong, Cecilia, Megumi Tsunaka, Hector W. Tsang, Edward Chan, and Wai Ming Cheung. “Effects of Yoga on Stress Management in Healthy Adults: A Systematic Review.” ProQuest. N.p., n.d. Web.
Parshad, O. “Department of Basic Medical Sciences, The University of the West Indies, Kingston 7, Jamaica, West Indies. Oparshad@uwimona.edu.jm.” Role of Yoga in Stress Management. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Oct. 2016.
Picture:
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As a college student I am constantly on the search for ways to reduce stress. If yoga can do that while also allowing my muscles not to be in a eternal knot then I am all for it. Unfortunately it is not exactly socially acceptable for guys to do yoga. If it was then I am sure that I’d be doing it. Maybe in the future! Also, do you think that the competency level of the yoga participant affects the amount of stress that is reduced?
This article is very intriguing to me because I have done yoga before. I used to do it for hockey to try to enhance my flexibility. Not only that but it was an extremely relaxing activity which calms my mind. Do you think athletes should use different yoga techniques? Here are a few I found to benefit athletes in the link.
http://www.stack.com/a/best-yoga-poses-for-athletes
This is very interesting and I’ve heard before that yoga reduces stress. I personally don’t do yoga as I’m about as flexible as a brick. Regardless, I assume your brain must be behind all of this as it would connect the physical action to a better mental state. I looked into this assumption and found that people who practice yoga have, on average, a larger hippocampus, which is the part of the brain that plays the biggest role in reducing stress. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-yoga-changes-the-brain/