4 Ways Yoga Can Help You Cope with Anxiety

If you’ve ever found yourself worrying beyond control and unable to enjoy everyday life, you’re not alone. Current research estimates that around 18% of adults struggle with clinical anxiety at some point in their life (and countless more with undiagnosed anxiety). The good news is that there are many ways to cope with increased anxiety and stress. 

As we’ve learned more about the brain-body connection, it’s become increasingly clear that yoga is an effective, evidence-based strategy to cope with, manage, and reduce anxiety. Yoga is a practice of the mind and body that includes physical poses, intentional breathing, and relaxation or meditation.  

Here are four things we think you need to know about how yoga can benefit you if you struggle with anxiety:

1. Yoga reduces body-based stress.

Through stretching and grounding poses in yoga, you can help relieve muscle tension - one of the most common symptom of anxiety. Muscles contract when the fight, flight or freeze system in the brain is activated. If you have anxiety, this system is activated more easily and often than those without anxiety. Yoga stretches out muscles and relieves this tension, helping reduce reactivity, hyper-vigilance and overall anxiety symptoms. It increases connectedness with what’s going on in your body, allowing you to catch and cope with stress before it escalates into panic.

2. Yoga promotes mindfulness practice.

The best way to feel differently is to do differently. Yoga helps combat anxiety because it’s present-focused. When we get too far into the future, we start to feel anxious. By learning the skills of staying in the present moment, or focusing on your breath, you can use these techniques to calm down when your anxiety starts to increase. 

3. Yoga helps control anxiety reactions.

Brain imaging shows us that during yoga, the part of the brain that decreases feelings of worry (the ventromedial prefrontal cortex) is activated. By practicing yoga, we’re practicing activating this part of our brain. Remember, neurons that fire together wire together.Through repetition, this part of the brain activates and decreases anxiety more frequently, which can help you control anxious reactions.  

4. Yoga promotes self-compassion.

Through making time for yourself, centering around affirmations and mantras, and connecting with your body, you’re living out self-compassion. Self-criticism feeds and heightens the anxiety cycle. Self-compassion gently slows it down, takes it apart, and puts us back together with love and kindness. Self-compassion decreases avoidance and makes us more able to cope.

Yoga can be extremely beneficial, and it’s easy to find a class near you. If you’re near Rooted, we are actually holding two yoga classes right now! 

Restorative Yoga: This class is open for anyone to join and runs ongoing on Thursdays from 5:15 p.m. to 6:15 p.m. Cost is $12 for drop-ins and $10 with a 6-class pass.

Postnatal Yoga: This class runs over 6 Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. (9/21-11/2). Cost is $14 for drop-ins, $12/class with a 4-class pass and $10/class with a 6-class pass. Babies in arms welcome - newborns through crawlers.

Registration is up on our website: www.rootedcounselingmi.com/movement