Monday Motivation – How yoga has given me my life back!
The question I get asked the most other than ‘I bet you are analysing me right now’ (any counsellors reading, can I get an amen!), is ‘what is the best tool for managing my own mental health?’ So here it is, from me to you….
One of the most important tools for managing your own mental health is SELF-CARE!
Any activity that increases your self-awareness, relaxation and leads to a deeper relationship with your own self is imperative to managing your own mental health. Yes, that’s it, I’m basically telling you to go on a date with yourself! Now I’m not sure what that activity will look like for you but here are examples from previous clients that might be useful to you, they include but are not limited to painting, journaling, running, going to the gym, walking, yoga, meditation, dog walking…there are endless possibilities.
However, the one activity that really stands out for me, and I mean life changing, is yoga. I’m going to share my story with you and then going into the 5 reasons why I think yoga has such a positive influence on mental health.
My personal yoga journey
Several years ago, I was 9 months pregnant with my 2nd child and I began to feel serious pain in my lower back. Obviously we thought it was due to being so heavily pregnant but after he was born my back did not improve at all. In fact, over the next few years, the pain gradually increased. Towards the end I was taking nearly 15 different tablets a day to try and rid myself of this terrible pain, but nothing worked!
We were very lucky to have the opportunity to see a private consultant and after 12 months of being on so many tablets we bit the bullet and made the appointment. This turned out to be one of the best decision I’ve ever made in my life! So, 7 days and 1 MRI later, at 32 years old, I was diagnosed with arthritis of my lower spine. I was relieved to have the diagnosis but worried about what that meant for my future! Mind you, I was the mother of 2 children under 3 and studying at university, I didn’t have time or energy to be unwell, I had so many dreams and I was scared.
This amazing consultant change my life with one single act, he handed me a book, called ‘Yoga, the back Pain Cure, by Howard Vanes and Dr., Rick Harvey’. He told me to go off for a few months, do these exercises twice a day, and see how I got on. I was sceptical to say the least but was desperate to avoid surgery! To my utter amazement, within 30 days, I was off all the pain medication and I was pain free! 10 minutes, twice a day of gentle stretching, took away years of terrible pain! Needless to say I was hooked!
Fast forward a few years, I’m still doing yoga and my back is well, but I had gone on to do my postgraduate studies, was still working, still the mama of these 2 growing children and I was BUSY! Between university, work, family life, and my clinical hours I was working 50 to 60 hour weeks and I was more stressed then I’ve ever been or ever care to be again, and I became so anxious. Looking back I can see that the stress built up over time, but at the time it felt like it came like it came from nowhere, like a sack of bricks falling from the sky! My anxiety manifested as panic attacks and was accompanied by very low mood.
After an embarrassing trip to urgent care, where I thought I was having a heart attack, I came home, looked at my 2 beautiful children, spoke at length with my husband and knew that I owed it to them and to myself to do something about this crippling anxiety. So I went to the doctor and asked for help, made an appointment with a counsellor and then turned to my old friend yoga for a bit of help. By this time, I had done my research and knew enough about the health benefits of yoga, to know that I wanted to see for myself.
At this point I had been doing yoga for quite a while, but was sticking mostly with the physical movements and not paying much attention to the synchronising of body and mind that yoga has to offer. So I began by doing longer classes at home, instead of the 10 minutes stretches, I began with 30 minute sessions, adding breath work into these movements. Slowly, I began adding meditation into the mix, which for a person who’s brain works at 500 mph is a super hard, and still a learning process for me.
Over time, I began to feel better, not totally free from anxiety, I think anxiety will always be a small part of my life, but for the 1st time in a long time, I felt in control of my own emotions. Now, I feel like I have enough physical and mental awareness that I can sense when anxiety is creeping in and I have the tools to be able to step away and calm myself down before it takes hold.
As part of my ongoing personal maintenance, I have given myself the gift of self-care Friday. I found an amazing yoga instructor named Lucy (click her name to be taken to her website) and her class is taking me to a deeper level than I thought possible. I am stronger, so much more supple and no matter what mood I walk into class with, I leave feeling calm, strong and ready to take on the day. I spend the rest of the day so motivated, with a ton of energy and a deep sense of peace and calm that I have been so desperate for. The best part is that this feeling stretches into the week, I feel better than ever before!
Now, I am a person that has to know the why’s, this feeling is amazing but I wanted to know why yoga has such a drastic effect on my mental health so have done some research and narrowed it down to 5 reasons that I think anyone suffering with poor mental health or stress would benefit from regular yoga practice.
Natural Anxiety Relief
Harvard researches reviewed several yoga practices and found that yoga reduces the exaggerated stress response that leads to things like anxiety and depression. Yoga can be a self-soothing technique and works by lowering the heart rate, lowers blood-pressure and eases respiration!
Increases GABA levels in the brain
GABA is a chemical in the brain that reduces the activity of the neurons it is attached to and researchers believe that it controls our fear and anxiety response. In other words, people with low levels of GABA, are more prone to anxiety, depression, insomnia, headaches, and muscle pain. However, Streeter, et. al. 2007 found that 27% of their participants were shown to have an increase in GABA levels after a group yoga sessions!
Mind body connection
The body mind connection is of huge importance and when our body feels strong our confidence increases and the sense of overall awareness increases. In my work, I am very interested in how emotional pain and trauma is stored in the body. For a person who experiences anxiety, yoga is a fantastic way to consciously feel the lived experience of emotions in the body, and this awareness means that the green eyed monster of anxiety is less likely to ‘creep up’. The awareness allows us to feel those micro indicators that warn us of a ‘disturbance in the force’.
Encourages mindful living
This was sort of surprising to me at first, but regular yoga has an effect on how much we engage in the present moment in all areas of our lives, not just on the yoga mat. This increased level of mindfulness allows us to utilise our senses in a much more conscious way. So slowly down and having the focus and concentration to be able engage with day to day tasks or the way that yoga has a way of encouraging gratitude for those small moments. This makes the most arduous tasks bearable….and even pleasant!
Yoga builds resilience
For me, this is one of the most important aspects of yoga, that took me a long time to understand. The challenge of the practice itself is is crafting a deep inner strength that I didn’t even know I had. The fluidity of yoga, using breath and movement, combined with balance and hyper concentration is strengthening my inner resilience like a muscle. The more I practice the longer I am able to focus and the easier it becomes to blank out the noise and movement around me and focus on the inner me. This is also what I carry with me the most throughout the week and what helps me manage my anxiety. I can close my eyes, connect with my own breath and shut down the noise, almost instantly, and this has been life changing.
There you go! my story and a few reasons why yoga is such an important part of my life now! If you think counselling would help you, please feel free to get in touch!
References
Bullock, G. (2017) How yoga builds stress resilience. Retrieved from https://yogainternational.com/article/view/stress-resilience
Keller, A. (2017). Systematic Review of Scientific Evidence Supporting Yoga as an Alternative Treatment for Generalized Anxiety Disorder.
Streeter, C. C., Jenson, J.E. Perlmutter, R. M., Cabral, H.J., Tian, H., Terhune, D. B., …& Renshaw, P.F. (2007). Yoga Asana sessions increase brain GABA levels: A pilot study. The journal of alternative and complementary medicine, 13(4), 419-426.
Nevins, (N.B.) Retrieved from https://osteopathic.org/what-is-osteopathic-medicine/benefits-of-yoga/
