Yogic Breathing Exercise for Anxiety and Depression

According to research 80% of the time Anxiety and Depression are co-occuring, and can impact the functioning of the person that is experiencing the symptoms that coincide with those diagnosis. Cause the person to have a lack of motivation and as if your mind keeps going in these negative thought loops. Yoga can be a way of balancing your body and mind, so the state of the mind is calm and clear and the body feels more energy. 

Here is a simple yogic breathing exercise to practice at home: Come into a standing position, your feet parallel and one fist’s width apart for stability. Draw your tailbone down. Lift your shoulders up to your ears, inhale to 2/3rds capacity and hold in the breath for 3 counts and then exhale. Make fists of your hands, tighten the muscles of your face, and hold your breath for 3 counts and then exhale. Now stretch your arms out in front of you. Inhale and make fists of your hands. Exhale and relax. Close your eyes and feel the effects of the breathing exercise.

Yogic Breath Can Health Relieve Depression

If you've ever been in a yoga class, they most likely cued you to focus on your breath, this is done not only to make sure you're getting oxygen in your body, but also to increase mindfulness. In addition, the practice of deep breathing stimulates our parasympathetic nervous system (PNS), responsible for activities that occur when our body is at rest. It functions in opposite to the sympathetic nervous system, which stimulates activities associated with the flight-or-fight response. In other words, breathing deeply/using yogic breath signals your nervous system (including your BRAIN) to relax and rest.

By making the choice to voluntarily change the rate, depth, and pattern of our breathing, we can change the messages being sent from the body’s respiratory system to the brain. These messages from the respiratory system have a rapid, powerful effects on major brain centers involved in thought, emotion, and behavior.

Here are three ways to practice yogic/deep breathing to help relieve depression:

Coherent Breathing

This breath is achieved by counting to five inhaling and count to five exhaling. These five-minute rate breathing maximizes the heart rate variability (HRV), a measurement of how well the parasympathetic nervous system is working.  The higher the HRV the better because a higher HRV is associated with a healthier cardiovascular system and a stronger stress-response system.

Resistance Breathing

Resistance breathing is exactly what its name suggests: breathing that creates resistance to the flow of air.  So, simply breathe out of our nose, to create more resistance than breathing through the mouth. and Inhale deeply and slowly in this way.

Breath Moving

An example of Breath Moving is as follows:

As you breathe in, imagine you are moving your breath to the top of your head. As you breathe out, imagine you are moving your breath to the base of your spine, your perineum, your sit bones. Each time you breathe in, move the breath to the top of the head. Each time you breathe out, move the breath to the base of the spine. Breathe in this circuit for ten cycles.

Try it out for 5-10 minutes a day and record your results each day, to see if you are making any progress.

How To Create A Healthy Positive Body Image

One of the missions I have in life is to help encourage people create a healthy, positive body image. The first step to this mission, is to practice myself, the second is to educate, and finally help emotional healing to occur.

So, I've done work on myself with therapist and will continue to allow my journey and story to evolve. With this practice of self-love I continuly propel myself to be in means slowing down, eating a balanced diet and practicing yoga. Today I want to address how helpful it can be to your mental health and body image, to create and cultivate a yoga practice.

Yoga And You

Find a teacher and a space to do yoga where diversity and inclusion is celebrated. Stay focused on what makes your body feel good. There are classes where having a certain body, or "nailing" the pose isn't the point of the class, those are the classes I encourage you to find. It may take a few times, but I know they are out there.

One of the first tenants of yoga is ahimsa (nonviolence)—do no harm to yourself or others. The media often is creating unrealistic images of beauty that is harmful to you. Therefore, it’s up to you to set those images aside, love yourself and be kind to yourself. You are beautiful as you are.

In your physical asana practice, focus more on what you can do and less on trying to be perfect at it. Mainstream media will continue to post picture perfect images, but I encourage you to change the esthetic and broaden the idea of what yoga looks like. There are entire organizations calling for yoga to be more about the practice and less about the body. In addition here in Denver there are even instructors that focus on being diverse, such as big booty yoga. I encourage you to post pictures of yourself doing your poses, to help break down what others believe about body image and yoga, as well as to celebrate you just doing you!

Yoga can Heal

Yoga helped me learn to love my body for the first time. After years of struggling with loving my body I finally tried yoga, and did it even when it was uncomfortable. I had always hated on yoga, for reason such as "its not a real workout", "its too slow pace", "only yuppies or hippies practice yoga", and finally "I don't burn enough calories during yoga, its a waste of time". 

For many years I was an avid runner, or perhaps an addicted runner that wouldn't let up. I started running in high school as a means to fit in and loose weight. Running in fact help me accomplish both goals, so my logic was that if I run more, run before practice, stay late at practice, run everyday, and so on that my goals would be exponentially achieved. And that worked, for awhile, and even when it didn't I kept trying to make it work, because after all it worked before. In this way, I was just like an addict, chasing that first "high" that I had gained from running.

There is a lot of "story" in between this point in time and to where I began to love yoga, so for time sake I'll fast forward the time line to then. 

So I start practicing yoga because my therapist at the time stated that it would be a great practice in mindfulness. With time, yoga taught me to create space for me to feel my feelings, to treat my body as a vessel of love rather than an enemy to despise. I went to classes that focused on the breath work and had no mention of "six-pack abs". I felt the connection and safety I needed to in that time—I was vulnerable, but supported and I loved it. I learned about the Sutras and Tapas and felt a spiritual connection that I have cut myself away from during the obsession with food and my body shape. 

Healthy mind and exercise collided for me when I began yoga and I am so grateful for my practice. So much in fact that I became a yoga teacher myself to help give back the connect and safety I felt to others. 

Eating Well & Yoga

Eating Well is more that just eating your fruits and veggies. Its about eating to fuel and honor your body. Appreciating your body for what it does for you, and how it works for you in harmony when its respected. A practice that helps encourage this is yoga, which teaches awareness of the body’s functions and feelings. This practices is especially impactful when you've been disconnected from the body and mind connection.

Yoga can be an effective method of emotion regulation and distress tolerance (two pillars of DBT). Practicing yoga, mindfulness, and therapeutic services can help you by

• Increased attentiveness to one’s body functions and feelings

• Improved mood and decreased irritability

• Improved body image and self-confidence

• Greater sense of well-being

• Increased feelings of relaxation

• Improved ability to focus

• Improved sleep patterns

• Diminished impulsivity and irrational thoughts/behaviors

• Increased optimistic outlook on life and positive mind-state

• Improve ones relationship with self

I offer yoga classes, both individually and as a group. Contact me for details