Yoga to Relieve Stress for Beginners

We can use yoga to relieve stress for beginners. New or old to a yoga practice, we all need calm through our day to day life. That is the real reason we do yoga, to learn skills that we can take off the mat and into our life. Yoga is nearly 5,000 years old and may be the oldest method of self discipline. Yoga involves lifestyle choices, movement, breathing practices, and meditation to list a few of the eight limbs. Studies have found that yoga can increase productivity, encourage good mood, and increase mindfulness. All of these attributes of yoga can lead to reduced stress.

10 Ways to Calm- Using Yoga to Relieve Stress for Beginners

1. Yoga teaches us to breathe deeply. When we are stressed, we tend to take short, superficial breaths that come from the chest. These breaths do not provide relief, they act more like gasps. Through yoga, we learn how to breath deeply and access our diaphragm and lungs together. Try this meditation to find your own breath.

2. Yoga teaches us to take control of our breath. Have you ever felt that your life is spinning out of control? Especially when we are stressed, we feel a lack of control and have a hard time accepting that we cannot control everything. The one thing we can always control is our breath. Controlling the breath will help our reactions to the things in our life that are causing stress. Try this breath controlling exercise.

3. Yoga slows the breath down and releases stress on the nervous system. When we are stressed, our parasympathetic nervous system responds. It is like a fight and flight syndrome, we have to respond in kind. So, slow the breath down and change your response to stress. Use yoga to relieve stress for beginners.

4. Yoga stretches tight muscles and releases tension in the body. When we are stressed, cortisol builds up in our muscles and it makes them ache if it can not be removed. Yoga asana will move the body, warm the body, and stretch the body to release the cortisol. We also exhibit stress in our muscles. Have you ever had a tight neck or shoulders? It may be stress. Try this yoga sequence to shed the day’s stress.

5. Yoga is positive physical movement which will release endorphins. They make us happy! It is hard to be stressed when we are happy and our body feels good.

6. Yoga teaches us to clear the mind. One of the eight limbs of yoga is mediation and a tool of meditation is clearing the mind of though and worry. Can you imagine a clear mind to fill up with positive thoughts instead of stressed ones? Yoga to relieve stress for beginners paired with meditation can teach you to clear the mind. Try this meditation to access the power of your mind.

7. We learn how to relax in savasana. Savasana can be hard for at first. Sometimes we don’t know how to truly let go and the pace of our modern culture can lead us to undervalue rest. Yoga to relieve stress for beginners and teach us how truly let go.

Try this savasana exercise. Lay flat on your back and try to let go of all stress in your body. Sometimes we do not know how stressed our muscles are. Purposefully tighten the legs, calves, feet, glutes, and hips. Hold them tight and rigid. Now let it go and feel the difference. Purposefully tighten the torso, arms, hands, shoulders, and biceps. Hold them tight and rigid. Now let it go and feel the difference. Purposefully tighten the neck, face, jaw, eyebrow, forehead. Hold tight and rigid. Now let it go and feel the difference and the relief in the relax.

8. Meditation helps us to control our mind and clear our thoughts. How about trying 10 min of meditation every day? See what a difference it can make in your stress.

9. Yoga loosens areas of stress in the body- back, shoulders, and neck. These three areas are the primary places of physical stress in the body. Yoga to relieve stress for beginners will make a world of difference!

10. Yoga makes you feel strong- a positive emotion to replace the anxiety of stress. Replacing the stress with positive thoughts will feel so empowering! You are strong, you can learn how to handle your stress. Yoga to relieve stress for beginners will make you strong.

Try my Guided Meditation package for daily calm from stress.