According to reports, stress is one of the biggest threats to the health of workforces. It is estimated that the annual costs of stress on the UK economy alone equates to over £3 billion per year, so you can only imagine the impact it has worldwide. This doesn’t include any personal losses incurred by the person suffering from stress.
A certain amount of stress is good for us and is indeed necessary for us to find the motivation to drag ourselves out of bed on those dark, cold, wet winter mornings. Without the fear of being reprimanded, dismissed, or falling further behind on our workload, it’s doubtful most of us would conjure up the motivation to get out of bed!
Stress can serve us well in times of crisis, and can help all of us to become more productive, creative and active. While you may not have considered this fact, exercise is a form of stress that results in the body having to make a series of anatomical and physiological improvements, or adaptations in order to cope with the increased physical demands placed upon it.
Prolonged and sustained stress however can have a negative effect on health and can trigger a cascade of destructive coping mechanisms. Overeating, smoking, alcohol abuse and drug use are common ways in which people try to block out their stressors. Aside from health risks associated with these avoidance strategies, the stress itself causes changes in our hormone profile; adrenaline and cortisol are both released to meet the body’s increased energy demands. This causes the immune system to become suppressed and increases the potential for illness, disease and infection. The net effect of chronic stress is simple – reduced vitality, wellbeing and health!
Why Yoga?
Yoga is an excellent practice for stress relief. Not only can it help stressed individuals to start to feel calmer and more in control, it is also extremely useful for identifying the origins of the stressors, so that we are better able to cope with it in the future.
Yoga is journey that is ultimately concerned with discovering the self; in the context of stress, this journey will help us all to foster a more balanced relationship to the inevitable ups and downs of our lives.
It’s something that Scott Robinson, creator of Yogibanker, knows incredibly well. In a recent interview with HFE, he revealed how the reason he first got into yoga was for stress relief to help with a high pressure job.
The Stress Response
When we are stressed our primitive survival mechanism is triggered – the ‘fight or flight’ response. Sympathetic (stimulatory) nervous activity increases, muscles become tensed in readiness to defend ourselves, or to escape. We hold our breath to stay quiet in the face of danger, heart rate and blood pressure both rise to pump more blood to our muscles, and more adrenaline and cortisol is released to the bloodstream in order to temporarily enhance our physiological state.
Once the danger has passed however, parasympathetic (calming, inhibitory) nervous activity increases and the sympathetic responses described above are reversed; the body enters a restorative mode where it repairs and refines these systems to make them more efficient for the next time that danger strikes. This is also what happens following exercise!
The fight or flight response is a remarkable mechanisms that has served us humans well since our time on this earth began. Unfortunately however, modern day stressors like work, money, security, relationships and ego just don’t go away. They are chronic and unrelenting and do not give the body time to recover from their effects.
Yoga Promotes Relaxation
Yoga is extremely effective at overcoming the many physical manifestations of stress, including:
- tense muscles
- hunched and rounded shoulders
- clenched jaw
- tight forehead
- hard eyes
- frozen diaphragm
- poor breathing patterns
The practice of yoga asanas (specific yoga postures) helps to reverse these tensions by relaxing the mind, controlling the breath and realigning the body. Those who practice yoga frequently report greater metal clarity and fewer mental fluctuations.
Pranayama and Stress Relief
Pranayama is the term that is used to describe the many different yogic breathing practices. These techniques are extremely effective at developing greater awareness of breath and control of the diaphragm.
Diaphragmatic breathing, that is breathing deep from the abdomen and using the diaphragm rather than the chest can trigger an almost immediate increase in parasympathetic nervous activity, thus bringing about a greater state of relaxation, tranquillity and calmness.
Summary
Asana and pranayama practice helps create a greater sense of relaxation and helps to create a greater degree of physiological balance.
The most effective strategy however for overcoming the stress controlling our response to stressors, or potential stressors lies with our ability to take control of the mind- this is where yoga comes in to its own.
Ultimately to fully manage stress it helps to understand the workings of your mind and how endless worrying and circular thought patterns keep our physiological stress responses stimulated when they don’t need to be.
The practice of meditation can give us insight and understanding into the relationship between thoughts, feeling, emotions and body tension and give us a greater perspective into how we can manage this long term.
If you’re interested in developing your own knowledge further and discovering how you can help others achieve stress relief, looking no further than a yoga instructor course.
Written by Josh Douglas-Walton, a writer for HFE, the UK’s leading provider of personal training courses and fitness qualifications.