Last week, I talked about the power of gemstones, stones, and crystals. This week, I will be talking about my experience with yoga, particularly one class of yoga.
Finding a good place to practice yoga is extremely important as yoga is supposed to not only strengthen your body but also strengthen and bring peace to your soul. If you feel uncomfortable or judged in any way when you are practicing yoga, then yoga will most likely not have all the benefits that it should.
I started practicing yoga when I was an athlete because my coaches wanted me and my teammates to be flexible. I hated yoga then. The classes were exactly the same thing every time and meditation/relaxation at the end didn’t speak to my soul. We laid on the ground and existed for the last five minutes of class. This teacher and this place was not the kind of place that you should practice yoga in if you are looking for the healing properties of yoga.
Last December, however, I went to a “house of yoga.” Generally, houses of yoga are a little more focused on mind and body than places like YMCAs. Houses of yoga normally have paying customers that come only for yoga, and their instructors are true yogis (yoga lovers). I went because my friend was going, and she wanted us to experience the place where she realized she needed to start eating again.
When I started practicing yoga, the vocabulary I used to speak about myself was made up primarily of negative words. They were words that helped me destroy myself and keep myself destroyed. Yoga helped me change that, and it wasn’t yoga that you can get anywhere.
My instructor’s name was Jessie. She was extremely strong, and the class was extremely fast-paced. I had to take breaks, which at first, I felt guilty about. Then I realized no one was judging me. In fact, nobody really noticed I was just sitting on my mat. I sweated my butt off in that class. I put everything I have into that class, and because of that, I finally felt yoga was beneficial. Fast-paced yoga isn’t the only beneficial yoga, though, and that is important to remember when you are trying to find a place to practice.
Yoga always ends with relaxation. Almost a year has gone by from the first time I laid on the floor listening to Jessie’s voice, but I can remember it like it happened last week. All that I was in that moment was tuned into Jessie’s voice. Her message that day was that there is a voice inside of our heads that tells us that we can’t do something, that we are not strong enough or worthy enough for something. Everybody has this voice. At first, I was wary of where she was going with this. She then brought the negative things we were talking about and relating them to our soul. This negative voice inside of my head is the voice that stifles my soul. This negative voice is not the voice of my soul; my soul is not that negative towards itself. Jessie talked about standing up for ourselves and not getting walked all over because being docile when we are getting used means that we stifle out soul. We should listen to our souls’ creativity, and let it show. We should be unapologetic about our souls. I cried. I laid on that mat in a 95-degree room sweating my butt off and cried.
I cried because I realized that I was hurting my own soul. Her class was a revelation to me. I took her class to heart that December, and I still think about it from time to time when I start self-deprecating.
So, if you are like me and you self-deprecate, maybe try to find a house of yoga. This house of yoga changed my thinking about myself. I practice only when I am home from college and in my hometown, but every time I get on a mat in that room, I feel myself coming back into my soul a little bit more.
Yoga might not be for you, but in the fight against mental illness, anything is worth a shot.
People sometimes think yoga isn’t a true workout, but my brother and his fiancé go to an intense yoga class that they can barely do (and they work out 3-5 times a week). Even the lower intensity yoga workouts that don’t focus on strength are tough because they work on flexibility and balance. I’ve done yoga multiple times before, and after each session I felt relaxed both mentally and physically. There’s some debate over what causes yoga to be relaxing, as some people believe yoga releases endorphins and other people believe it’s more the meditation aspect of yoga. You said that it’s important to be comfortable when practicing yoga or a person won’t receive the full benefits, which supports the idea that yoga’s benefits are partially from creating a calmer mental state (meditation). I agree that a mental aspect could be a large part of yoga’s stress relief, especially since the Medical Center at the University of Maryland wrote a researched overview on the benefits of yoga and say that scientists aren’t exactly sure if it's endorphins or meditation that allows yoga to lower blood pressure (http://www.umm.edu/health/medical/altmed/treatment/yoga).
ReplyDeleteI totally understand struggling through a yoga session even though you are what is typically considered "strong." I think part of this is because your core muscles are being used for every single movement, which is not something that normally happens for an entire hour. In my experience, yoga uses muscles that are not worked during a traditional gym workout and pushes your limits in using a muscle for an extended period of time (holding positions).
DeleteAs for what lowers blood pressure, I think it is a combination between the meditation and the atmosphere. If you are at a yoga studio or house and not a gym like LA Fitness or the YMCA, the instructors will often burn incense or diffuse essential oils. I am a firm believer in essential oils' healing abilities, so between meditation and the atmosphere, I am not surprised that blood pressure is lowered.
I think yoga is a great addition to mental health treatment. Awareness of the body in a positive way can help detract attention to negative self-talk that overwhelms so many of us. Concentrating on breathing, movements of the body, and how we hold ourselves is an insight to positive changes we want to implement outside of the yoga session. Yoga has the ability to decrease exaggerated stress responses by helping regulate breathing and being a self-soothing technique for anxiety. I find that yoga helps me focus on my breathing and lets me redirect my panic "through" my body and out my fingertips and toes. I like the flow that the motions put you through and it feels like the energy is moving through and out your body.
ReplyDelete(https://www.health.harvard.edu/mind-and-mood/yoga-for-anxiety-and-depression)
I like how you described your panic as being redirected through your body. When panic is taking hold of your body, at least in my experience, it feels like there is no release possible. Thinking of redirecting panic is possible a better way of diminishing the effects of panic than attempting to rid yourself of panic. Redirection seems a more feasible feat.
DeleteI personally love yoga. I wish I had the discipline to do it more often, but I'm working on fixing that. I was introduced to yoga in high school, where a bunch of people in my movement class used smelly, unwashed yoga mats belonging to the school to do yoga in the gym. It was one of those locations where I felt uncomfortable and judged. Even with that said, however, the man's voice on the video still managed to find its way to me.
ReplyDeleteIn these classes, we laid on the floor at the end as well, in relaxation pose, and more than one person would fall asleep. I think the interesting thing about yoga is the peace that comes from it. I follow a bunch of yogis on instagram, and they always amaze me with their posts about inner peace and strength after their practice.
Personally, I like to do yoga for the physical affects, although the mental ones are great too. My spine curves the wrong way and I have spasms through my back as well as overextending ligaments. Doing yoga really helps the tension in my body. I found it confusing to keep all the different vocabulary words straight at first, but this article from 2010 is very helpful if anyone else if struggling: https://www.livescience.com/35129-yoga-increases-brain-function-bone-density.html
I totally feel you on figuring out the yoga vocabulary. The house of yoga that I practice at in York uses the correct terminology, and I know hardly any of it. I felt bad looking at the other people because I didn't want them to think that I was judging them, but I really was just trying to figure what the heck I was supposed to be doing.
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