Yoga and Mental Health- Part 2

 

 

Yoga was designed to make humans physically and mentally fit and empowered in order to live a beautiful life in this planet. As we mentioned in our first article in Sanskrit, yoga means to unite, the relationship between your mind, body and divine spirit. yoga practice improves quality of life. We learn the differences between tense and calm body processes so that we can implement a change through asanas and pranayama.

 

The whole process brings the awareness that there is a relationship between two ends of one phenomenon and it gives us self realization. We are body and mind and we have different complete opposite points too. We are ego and spirit, tension and relaxation, pain and ease, balance and unsteadiness, love and hate, and separated and united. We understand and realize the opposite express of the same phenomenon we start treating mind too along with the body. And this awareness makes us live lives in a integrated way.

 

 

We realize we are not just a social identity but a relational, psychological and spiritual self. We start nurturing and supporting our overall being begin to make choices that nurture and support our whole being. We start taking responsibility for the whole of us. We start making positive choices rather than locating problems. We allow us to grow more. And start growing in this overall awareness. Yoga is indeed, a lifestyle—that consists eight limbs or life principles, like:

 

• Yama

• Niyama

• Asanas

• Pranayama

• Pratyahara

• Dharana

• Dhyanna

• Samadhi

 

Here except asanas The rest concern mental, emotional, and spiritual experiences. This is because yoga is a complete package for our mental and physical wellbeing. An authentic yoga practice helps to have introspection reflection, we go inside and connect with our thoughts feelings, beliefs, and core values and realize our deeper and truer selves. After going through these it would be a mistake to say that yoga and psychology are two separate subjects! And yoga is even more intimately related with positive psychology.

 

Study says yoga has immense positive effects on mental health. Practicing yoga facilitates a greater release of gamma-Aminobutyric acid (GABA). And we all know GABA acts as a sort of “grand inhibitor” of the brain which energizes your brain and at the same time reset your brain to a calmer and collective state which helps to encounter stress we deal with each and every day. 2011 study from Harvard medical school says the effects of meditation on the brain and found a connection between mindfulness and processing new information. The researchers examined the brains of 17 people before and after participating in an eight-week meditation program. Brain scans showed an increase in grey matter in the parts of the brain responsible for learning, memory, and emotional balance.

 

A 2016 study from researchers at Carnegie Melton University demonstrated how meditation can improve concentration and decision making. Meditation can helps us to fight with anxiety and depression. A 2014 research analysis published in JAMA Internal Medicine found that meditation can help ease anxiety and depression, and could be part of a comprehensive mental health treatment plan. The researchers observed that participating in regular yoga practice (at least three times a week for eight weeks) experienced significantly fewer symptoms of depression anxiety, and neuroticism. Yoga is the marriage between your mental state and your physical state offers a unique opportunity to make a powerful impact on your mental health.

 

“The most important pieces of equipment you need for doing yoga are your body and your mind", Rodney Yee. Yoga helps you to have the state of physiological relaxation. When you relax deeply into a yoga pose through deep breathing, it lowers the brain’s response to threat. The body starts to turn off arousing nerve chemicals, like adrenaline. Yoga is organic treatment for the humanity. It connects you body mind and soul, Makes you a focused yet a kind person and helps to realize the purpose of your life.

 

 

Writer is a transformation coach, spiritual healer, motivational speaker, expert on Japanese productivity management, yoga consultant and philanthropist

 

Click on the below link to read Part 1-