Are you feeling stressed? Whether it is work, personal life, school or anything else - yoga is a great way to manage stress.

Just a pinch of the benefits from practicing yoga are:

Exercise

Yoga is an exercise and in the same way as any other form of exercise it reduces the levels of stress hormones in our body whilst simultaneously producing endorphins, which is our body’s way of naturally lifting our mood and getting rid of pain. This physical release of tension goes great with helping us to control the release of energy, ultimately helping us release mental and emotional stress too. So instead of thinking exercising must always be intense and high energy to reduce stress, you can try a nice relaxing Yoga class as an alternative.

Breathing

Yoga is learning about controlling your breath and it teaches us how to do this in a way we can apply controlled breath to real life stressful situations. You may find certain poses and stretches difficult at times but controlling and extending your breath to help you with this can be used in the same way for when you are, for example, finding a test difficult and you start to become stressed. Controlling and focusing on your breath in a challenging situation in the way that you learn how to do in yoga will enable you to remain calm and collected in that moment and approach the situation in a better way.

Mindfulness

Yoga is relaxing in its very nature, due to the controlled breathing, just like mindfulness. Many people actively incorporate mindfulness into their yoga routine. A meditative teaching from mindfulness that fits well with the breathing techniques used in yoga can help you to relax is that accepting a negative experience is actually a positive experience. Allowing yourself to accept this gives you a different perspective and way to relax.