24 Jan 2023
Yoga is the mother-principle of absolute equilibrium. It’s a way of life that is characterized by the confluence of energies, wherein the energies get balanced and polarities get harmonized.
Yoga is the mother-principle of absolute equilibrium. It’s a way of life that is characterized by the confluence of energies, wherein the energies get balanced and polarities get harmonized.
Anxiety is essentially the off-balance of this state of absolute equilibrium. This could happen due to a number of reasons, such as apprehensions, insecurities, despair, stress and fear, leaving you with a constant feeling of uneasiness and uncertainty. Anxiety constricts your body and holds a range of negative emotions and sentiments within you.
When you do yoga, it regulates your breathing pattern. Breathing correctly, along with performing basic physical movements, such as stretching and contracting, helps you to release the dis-ease within you by expanding and opening up your body. Your mind that was lost and scattered, comes back to a state of equilibrium, with regulated breath. With each breath, you breathe out all the negativity and apprehensions, and breathe in positivity and zeal.
Yoga opens your mind and body, and as that happens, you begin to flow better, both mentally and physically. You are able to practice the beauty of rhythmic breathing once again, which thereby leads to the rhythm of movement, too. Practicing yoga is “the” way to achieve balance whenever your perfect equilibrium is out of tune.
Postures and Techniques to Combat Anxiety
Our biochemistry is changing every nano second. Yoga governs that constant change into the right direction of growth and balance, fueling our body with the essentials of life, thus releasing a lot of energy.
While contractions strengthen your will and determination, and thereby help you to focus steadfastly, stretches expand your awareness and allow consciousness to flow throughout your mind and body.
When we experience the state of impermanence within our body, we begin to understand that no anxiety, depression, or resentment can last forever.
With yoga, we can literally make our body subservient, thus making the mind comply with our will and determination. In the state of being subservient, we, as the drivers of our consciousness, can literally guide our mind and body through the negative feelings and bhaav (emotions), and our chitta (mind) becomes purer.
Yoga is nothing else but composing postures in poetry and movement in grace. When you move like a swan, that action creates fluidity within your body. It’s a fluidity that doesn’t allow any state to remain constant. That stands true for anxiety, too. As you move, circulate, and breathe rhythmically, the anxiety is getting released gradually and it will be replaced by the happy feeling of the movements, the joyousness of the music, if you are listening to any, and the bliss of the postures you are moving into.
Holding the posture and being in it also gives you a sense of calm, especially if the posture is not too strenuous. Sukhasana (the easy pose) and Siddhasana (perfect or accomplished pose), are extremely helpful and relaxing.
Postures, such as Bhujangasana (cobra pose) and Balasana (child’s pose), are also helpful to release high levels of anxiety. Double Pavanmuktasana (wind relieving pose), if not done too intensely, also helps in releasing anxiety. The dynamic variation of Paschimottanasana (seated forward bend pose) is also extremely beneficial.
With Yoga Nidra (yogic sleep) and/or Shavasana (corpse pose), your physical knots and tension get dissolved in gravity. This in turn helps in easing off and then gradually getting rid of all the mental and emotional stress forever. Doing Yoga Nidra with guided meditation, in particular, helps you to move your awareness at various levels — right from the tip of the toe to the head, or vice-versa, thereby releasing anxiety from every inch of your body. You are breathing in awareness and breathing out stress, tension, and rigidity from every cell of your body, thus saying Goodbye to your anxiety as well.
The movements of yoga, the deep and rich principles of the practice, and the state of being stationary or in nothingness, which means that you are in a meditative state, all come together to ease out the deep-seated anxiety within you. This translates into you living a life that is infused with peace and positivity.
With Yoga, your Anxiety gets Neutralized…And, Life gets Mickeymized!!!