Modern Stress Relief: Try Ancient Yoga

You're under stress, but you have to be in control all day long. Over time, that can lead to poor eating habits, the production of stress hormones and cardiac risk factors. The good news is you can reverse these risk factors non-pharmacologically and develop some habits for a lifetime that complement conventional diet and exercise.

Yoga helps you to relearn that natural state that your body and mind want to be in: relaxation.

Yoga is one of the most prominent forms of meditative exercise within the growing mind-body health movement. Other forms include qigong, tai chi, and other exercise techniques that include meditation. Mind-body fitness comes from Eastern philosophies and religions. These practices improve both your emotional and physical well being.

Mind-body exercise has many benefits, which are showing themselves to be authentic even under scientific study. Indeed, mind-body exercise can accomplish a number of things, such as lowering your risk of heart disease and boosting your mood.

The kinder, gentler movements typical of yoga improve flexibility, strength and muscle tone and can be more youth-promoting than the wear-and-tear of daily aerobics, weights and running alone.

The practice of yoga should integrate every aspect of human existence. While many modern Western practitioners focus on the physical asanas, for others, yoga is an all-encompassing way of life and a path to bliss.

Yoga has lofty goals indeed, but in fact practicing it is wonderfully simple and you can do it anywhere, anytime. If you take yoga to its extremes, you can utilize yoga's dietary practices and moral codes as well as its meditative practices. More commonly, though, it's utilized as a combination of asanas (or postures), meditation and breathing exercises, also called pranayama.

Authors have written entire books on how to breathe during yoga. When you deep breathe, you calm yourself, but you also energize yourself at the same time. You can feel very energized from a few minutes of careful deep breathing, but it's a different kind of energy than many of us are used to feeling. Not jittery or hyper, this type of energy is calm and steady.

Try this 5-minute Breath Break to release your stress and pump up your energy. (Read through the instructions several times before you try the practice.)

1. With your back as straight as possible, sit in a chair or on the floor. If you choose to sit in a chair, your feet should be flat on the floor with your knees in line with the center of your feet. If your feet don't rest comfortably on the floor, put a book or cushion under your feet so that your knees are perpendicular to your hips. Your hands should be on the tops of your legs, palms down, open and relaxed.

2. Close your eyes and simply rest them.

3. Become aware of your ribs at the back, front and sides of your body, and think about your lungs behind your ribs.

4. Feel your lungs filling up, your ribs expanding out and up. Feel your lungs emptying, your ribs coming back down and in. Don't push the breath.

5. The first few times you do this, do it for 2 to 3 minutes, then do it for up to 5 to 10 minutes. At first, set aside a time at least once a day to do this. When you learn how good it makes you feel, you'll want to do it at other times as well.

About the Author

Kim Archer enjoys the health benefits and relaxation of yoga. A great source of information on this restorative practice can be found at Yoga Essentials.