by Throughout this rollercoaster ride of a pandemic, we’ve learned to adapt to increased levels of stress and anxiety, the uncertainties of sickness, as well as cope with existing mental health conditions.
The Benefits of Yoga for Mental Health
If you’re looking to improve your self-care routine for better mental health, yoga can be a great avenue. Not only can yoga improve your mental wellbeing and physical health, but it can also increase your self-awareness and ability to look inward.
Using yoga for mental health issues can help prevent severe problems from forming for many people. Below, we’ll talk about eight ways yoga can be a positive tool for mental health.
1. Better Moods
Exercise stimulates the release of mood-stabilizing chemicals in the brain like dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin. During yoga, your body moves and stretches, and these chemicals are released, making you feel better.
You might also see increased levels of a brain chemical called gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), linked to better moods. Not only does yoga stimulate the release of these “happy” chemicals, but moving your body, stretching, and becoming more mindful of your breathing can also help you feel better.
2. Helps Depression And Anxiety
Those same GABA chemicals are an essential tool in depression and anxiety relief. Experts have found that while there are many avenues for depression and anxiety management and recovery, yoga is one of the most effective ways to reduce symptoms of these disorders.
Yoga is a non-clinical, non-medicated way to manage depression and anxiety.
For people with anxiety, yoga helps them to:
- lower their resting heart rate
- release tension
- breathe deep and slow
- lower blood pressure
- ease anxious thoughts and tendencies
For people with depression, yoga helps them to:
- release pain or tension
- increase feelings of inner peace and tranquility
- focus on the present moment
3. Relieves Stress
Whether you’re dealing with clinical anxiety or stress during your everyday life, yoga can help to relieve a lot of that stress. For many people, yoga is a helpful tool to calm stressful thoughts, behaviors, and actions. It forces you to slow down, relax, and breathe.
Much yoga involves long, slow, deep breaths, expanding your belly or diaphragm to fill with air and then release. Many different breathing techniques are used in yoga, so you can try out a few to find what works best for you.
In stress management, yoga has even been found equally as effective as cognitive behavioral therapy (a trusted, evidence-based treatment method).
4. Improves Overall Quality Of Life
Practicing yoga daily or weekly may improve your overall quality of life, helping you feel healthier and more secure mentally. This is a positive lifestyle change that can touch every area of life: how you respond to stress when something happens at work, your ability to remain calm and focused during challenging tasks, your outlook on life, how you spend your time, the ways you pursue self-care, and much more.
You can take specific yoga techniques — such as a stretch or a breathing practice you connect to — and draw on it when you need to recenter yourself. As your body and mind become more in tune with one another, you’ll see positive changes in your life as a whole.
5. Boosts Self-Esteem
Some experts have found that yoga poses increase self-esteem. People who did yoga poses for just two minutes felt an increased subjective sense of energy, improved emotional health, and positive self-esteem. The participants felt in control, energetic, and empowered.
Yoga poses emphasize the lift of the spine and openness of the chest. This allows the total capacity of the lungs when you’re breathing, which improves your subjective sense of energy and mental performance.
6. Improves Sleep
Mental health often begins with the basics:
- quality food and nutrition
- a safe shelter
- and a good night’s sleep.
Sleep is connected to depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, and many other mental health conditions. It’s during REM sleep that your brain processes emotional information. The better you sleep, the better your mood and emotional reactivity are.
Practicing yoga helps stretch and relax your tense muscles and brings focused awareness to your breath, leading to deeper and more restorative sleep.
7. Helps With Self-Care
Everyone needs a self-care routine that feels comfortable and manageable for them. Self-care is the simple practice of taking care of your mind and body, and yoga is a great way to do that.
Not only are you exercising your body physically, but you’re exploring techniques of relaxation, mindfulness, and self-awareness. Yoga can help you feel more robust, more flexible, and in control of your body, decreasing symptoms of mental illness.
You can begin your day with a morning session of yoga, incorporate five- or 10-minute sessions into your breaks throughout the day, or have a nightly routine of yoga for decompression and relaxation.
8. Yoga Decreases Back Pain
Yoga helps strengthen and stretch tight back muscles, especially those in the lower back. Stretching your back with yoga poses can reduce tension, build flexibility strength, and improve your balance.
You can practice yoga poses for spinal decompression, such as:
- downward facing dog
- child pose
- cat and cow pose
Lack of movement combined with obsessing over the pain can inadvertently worsen back symptoms. However, the above stretches can help take the pressure off your spine, lessen the pain and increase your mental health.
A Final Word
When you take care of your body, your mind and emotional wellbeing will benefit. Yoga has been used for centuries to slow down, stretch the body, and deepen inner peace. You might start with a short yoga session to see how you feel and take it from there. With regular practice, you may begin to see the benefits for your mental health.
Author’s Bio:
Hannah Bennett is a content specialist for DetoxRehabs.net, an informational guide for people in addiction recovery and their loved ones.
