Boost Your Mental Health: Discover Benefits Of Yoga

Posted by Sudam Shelar on Apr 14, 2024 in Blog

In this fast-paced world, people are so engrossed in climbing up the stairs of success that mental well-being takes the brunt of it. Yoga is one such practice that has proved to be effective in a holistic approach to health and boosts your mental health.

Yoga is a balance between mind, body, and soul. Yoga when practised regularly not only affects the physiology of the body, but also balances hormones, and enhances brain responses. The yogasans, breathing exercises, meditation, and kriyas in combination help to make the body and mind flexible and at peace.

A] Overview Of The Connection Between Yoga And Mental Health

Yoga has gained much popularity as a complementary approach to mental health treatment. Yoga is such an exercise for the mind that releases certain chemicals that help elevate the mood and have a feel-good factor. Practising yoga increases mental concentration, discipline, focus and alertness.

Yoga helps to increase brain mass which improves learning ability and memory. Yoga reduces the brain shrinkage that happens with age and enhances cognition. It also improves the mind and body coordination. Mediation helps to reduce the hyperactivity of the brain, clearing the way of thinking. Yoga helps to increase self-awareness and initiates inner calm.

B] Effect Of Yoga On Physical & Mental Health

1. Physiological Effects Of Yoga

The asanas performed help to improve flexibility, strengthen the bones, and enhance core strength. Yoga improves balance, and body flexibility, enhances range of motion, and increases muscle strength. Yoga helps improve blood circulation, reduces chronic pain, improves the body’s posture, and improves breathing. Yoga helps maintain the body’s function and metabolism. Yoga improves cardiac health, maintains normal blood pressure, improves insulin metabolism, and aids in digestion.

2. Psychological Effects Of Yoga

Yoga stimulates our vagus nerve which is responsible for parasympathetic responses related to reducing stress and inculcating calmness. Staying focused and centred is one of the vital mental benefits of yoga. Meditation paths the way away from the stress triggers and brings your mind closer to peace.

Yoga increases the flow of serotonin that is responsible for the feel-good factor in the body. Mediation helps to stay focused on the present rather than stressing over the past and the future. Regular yoga practice and meditation help build resilience and increase mindfulness, which are pillars of mental health.

C] Benefits of Yoga for Mental Health

1. Stress Reduction And Relaxation

The contraction and relaxation of muscles while performing asanas help to reduce the body’s stress. Yoga releases dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin and reduces stress hormones like cortisol resulting in relaxation of the mind. The meditation music and peaceful atmosphere reduce anxiety, control hyperactivity of the brain, and reduce stress.

Meditation restricts the activity in the system that produces extreme emotions. This helps to stay level-headed during stress and improves problem-solving capacity. One of the benefits of yoga for mental health is that it induces good-quality sleep, reduces stress, and promotes relaxation.

2. Anxiety And Depression Management

Yoga is used as an additional therapy along with medical therapy to manage anxiety and depression. During anxiety attacks, there is an erratic breathing pattern which worsens the anxiety management. Regular breathing exercises and yogasanas help regulate breathing patterns during anxiety attacks. Yoga helps to ease depression. The peaceful music used during meditation helps to alleviate depression, uplift the mood, and calm the mind. A consistent yoga practice serves as the best and most economical remedy to manage anxiety and depression.

3. Improved Mood And Emotional Regulation

Any movement during exercise helps to improve the mood. Traditional yoga might seem slow in enhancing mood, but power yoga is dynamic yoga that successfully improves the mood. One of the power yoga benefits is that it helps to release serotonin and reduce cortisol which manages emotions and moods. Yoga helps to analyse the situation with a level head and channel our emotions in the right path rather than being an emotional wreck.

4. Enhanced Self-Awareness And Mindfulness

Yoga enhances self-awareness. Yoga helps you to stay focused on the present and analyse the situation with a calm mind. Yoga teaches us to accept ourselves along with our imperfections, practice self-kindness, and avoid any harsh self-judgment. Yoga helps us to become compassionate in every relationship and improves mindfulness. Yoga promotes inner strength, courage and determination thus, increasing resilience.

D] Practical Tips For Starting Yoga Practices To Improve Mental Health

1. Setting Intentions And Goals

You need to set clear intentions before you start yoga. Whether you want to practice yoga to reduce stress, increase flexibility, enhance mindfulness or overcome anxiety and depression. You need to set a goal and work in that direction to achieve it. For better results, you need to set short-term goals which are easy to achieve.

2. Choosing The Right Type Of Yoga

According to your likes and goals, you can select the yoga type. Hatha yoga creates awareness of breath with each posture, thus focusing on flexibility and relaxation. Yin yoga focuses on floor stretches that have relaxing effects on the mind. Iyengar yoga has asanas that focus on strengthening the body. Vinyasa yoga has a quick flow of poses, which helps to balance our breath, keep the mind focused and reduce anxiety and depression. Ashtanga and Power Yoga have full-body workouts that link the breath and movement.

3. Starting Slow And Building Consistency

You need to start slow. The postures are very important while performing yoga, or else it might cause injuries. Yoga works on biological, physiological and mental levels that might take time to align. Start with regular yoga, which has the basic yoga poses for a shorter session and increase the intensity and time once your body is comfortable with the basic level.

4. Listening to Your Body

Each body is different with different levels of flexibility and strength. You need to listen to your body while performing yoga and honour your physical and mental limitations. You can use props to ease your yoga practice or modify the asanas according to the comfort of the body without experiencing any pain or difficulty.

5. Practicing Mindfulness and Awareness

Yoga boosts your mental health. It makes you aware of the breath work and the body sensations you feel while performing asanas. Being in the present helps reduce anxiety and depression, it helps to relax the mind and find peace within. Meditation and breathing exercises increase our self-awareness and mindfulness.

Conclusion

Yoga helps to develop a healthy body and mind. We saw what are the benefits of yoga, not just for physiological health but also for mental health. Yoga teaches us to embrace ourselves as we are, to focus on the present, and to get rid of any negative thoughts and its importance in mental health care.

Yoga cannot replace medical care but it can be used as an additional natural tool in improving physical and mental health. For best results, it is always wise to get in touch with the best personal fitness trainer.