Medical research is finally beginning to catch up to what the ancient yogis have known all along: your mind and body are connected.
Now, that statement probably comes as no surprise to you. But believe it or not, Western medicine treated them differently for a few hundred years. This concept of mind / body dualism was first credited to the 17th century writings of Rene Decartes. But it is becoming increasing apparent — even to the medical establishment — that when the health of one is down, the health of the other is greatly affected.
It’s easy to see this in your day to day life.
How many of us have experienced a bad cold during a time when we were under a tremendous amount of mental stress? And how often have you heard a story of recovery against all odds that was linked to having a positive outlook?
This connection may be easy to understand intellectually, but searching out that cause and effect relationship in our day to day lives is usually where the “disconnect” happens.
Unfortunately, it’s only after we’re already suffering from the physical effects of chronic stress and anxiety — symptoms like hypertension, digestive issues or respiratory disorders — that we finally stop to wonder how things got so bad.
So what can you do about it? How can you get to the root cause of these disorders, and reverse them or completely prevent them in the first place?
I found my answer in the ancient discipline of yoga. The yoga masters believed that a regular yoga practice would help synchronize the mind and body, bringing them back into their natural union.
Yoga provides you with a clear set of tools and a platform for promoting and further developing this mind/body connection. And if you practice them, the result will be a more balanced and creative life, full of vibrant health and happiness.
Here are a few ways that yoga can make this happen for you.
1. Yoga Reduces Stress
Yoga poses bring you back into our body. When you focus your awareness on a specific posture, relaxing or stretching your muscles and connecting your breath, you induce a variety of natural stress releasing benefits. Lower heart rate and blood pressure and improved digestive function are just a couple of the benefits you’ll see from a regular yoga practice.
2. Yoga Gives You More Energy
When you move through a set of yoga postures, you’re stimulating blood flow, increasing respiration and releasing energy blockages in your body, thus improving your overall energy levels. An object in motion likes to stay in motion, and yoga can stimulate your physical energy levels long after the class is over.
3. Yoga Helps You Sleep
It may seem counterintuitive given the previous entry, but regular yoga practice can actually improve your sleep. While certain practices like Sun Salutation are inherently energizing, postures like Child’s Pose, Standing Forward Bend, Plow Pose and Shavasana, when paired with slow deep breathing, can relax your body and turn your mind inward, setting the tone for a blissful night’s rest.
4. Yoga Improves Your Mood
Are you feeling sad, or even a little depressed? Do you need to focus before a big test or presentation? Well guess what? There’s a yoga posture for that! Backward bending postures and extensions have a stimulating effect because they open both your chest and heart, increasing your receptivity to others, as well as your communication skills. And forward bending postures tend to be more introverting, bringing you inward and quieting your mind. Balance postures, like Tree Pose, not only improve your physical balance, but they can also balance your energy. So if you’re feeling “off balance” today, get yourself back on track the natural way with a few yoga postures.
5. Yoga Increases Your Physical Mental Flexibility
Every mental tension has a corresponding physical tension in your body. The physical manifestation of mental or emotional stress can show up as a disturbance in your sleep patterns, high blood pressure, migraine headaches, muscular aches and pains, and other disorders. The initial focus of a yoga posture is therefore to release these tensions on a somatic or physical level. Depending on your physical symptoms, a well-chosen set of yoga postures can also help you to lessen the effects of mental stress and strain by eliminating the physical manifestation of these mental stressors, at least temporarily. And as your body relaxes, so too does your mind.
With hundreds of yoga postures and movements to choose from, there really is something for EVERY BODY.
I encourage you to give the power of yoga a try. It truly can change your body, your mental state and your life. You have nothing to lose but your stresses, aches and pains!
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