When you experience anxiety, it’s as if your body is here in the present, feeling all your emotions in technicolor, while your mind races a million miles ahead into an imaginary future. In other words, it’s not pleasant.
Anxiety disorders affect more than 40 million adults in the United StatesYet many more of us experience chronic nervous system activation without a formal diagnosis. Interestingly, the proposed antidotes for anxiety, as prescribed by decades of contemporary research and Ayurveda, are quite similar.
From a contemporary scientific perspective tension is considered an increased activation of the body’s stress response (sympathetic nervous system). This results in that familiar fight or flight response. According to the ancient science of Ayurveda, the experience of anxiety is associated with an imbalance in vata, one of three doshas, or body types, usually associated with rapid movement, lightness and change. When Vata is aggravated or out of balance, the mind can feel scattered, restless and ungrounded. Sound familiar?
Science shows that slow, rhythmic breathing, gentle movements and sustained silence regulate the stress response. Ayurveda recommends grounding activities and stabilizing routines to calm excess vata. In both cases, the emphasis is on creating stability in body and breathing to calm the mind.
No matter how you approach it, practicing yoga can help.
How practicing yoga for anxiety improves how you feel
Research suggests that yoga helps address the symptoms of anxiety by slowing breathing, using gentle movements, and lingering in sustained silence. Rather than targeting a single nerve, yoga appears to affect multiple pathways involved emotional regulationincluded breathing patterns, brain healthAnd heart rate variability (a measure of how well your body adapts to stress and returns to rest).
A much-studied mechanism in practicing yoga for anxiety is its effect on anxiety gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA)a neurotransmitter that plays a key role in calming neural activity. Lower GABA levels have been linked to anxiety and mood disorders. Practicing yoga has been shown to increase GABA levels even more than walking, resulting in a better mood and less anxiety.
From an Ayurvedic perspective, maintaining stable and sustained postures cultivates the opposing properties of excess vata. Rather than unleashing your energy in a way that is upward, erratic, and mobile, these poses invite stability, rhythm, and steadfastness, the very conditions that help calm an anxious mind.
Whether you experience persistent anxiety or have little to do with it, you can help your nervous system calm down by working directly with the mind, body, and breath through yoga.
5 Ways to Practice Yoga for Anxiety
Andrea Machtenyoga teacher and founder of Powers yogaexplains that practicing mindful movements in grounding postures supports the body’s natural relaxation response, which in turn helps us move out of stress mode and into a stronger sense of security and ease. She recommends the following poses, including child’s pose, legs up the wall, and seated forward bends.
Each of the following attitudes for anxiety supports different mechanisms that regulate anxiety parasympathetic nervous system to help reduce symptoms of anxiety. You can do any or all of the following poses, wherever and whenever you want, to feel calmer when anxiety arises.
If your thoughts intrude on you – and they probably will! – then let your breath be your anchor. Keep your inhalations and exhalations relaxed and unhurried, simply focusing all your attention on the sensation of your breathing.
If you want, you can try box breathing or… sama vritti (same breathing), where you inhale for 4 counts and exhale for 4 counts. If breathing evenly feels stressful, just focus on breathing slowly. As you exhale, remember to release the tension in your jaw, forehead and shoulders.
1. Child’s Pose (Balasana)
Forward folding poses, such as Child’s Pose, help reduce stress by turning your attention inward and giving your body permission to rest.
How:
Get on your hands and knees, bring your big toes together and place your hips toward your heels. Lean forward and rest your forehead on the mat or a block. Rest your arms at your sides, palms on the mat, for a gentle stretch.
Or you can release them down your legs, with palms facing up.
Focus on:
Release the weight of your body toward the mat, letting gravity do the work for you. No effort, just convenience.
2. Legs against the wall (Viparita Karani)
Low-effort assisted poses, such as Legs Up the Wall, allow your body to linger in a space where you don’t have to ‘do’ much at all. With the wall supporting your legs, you can release the effort and relax in therapeutic silence.
How:
Sit sideways next to a wall and gently swing your legs up while leaning on your back. Try to get your hips as close to the wall as feels comfortable. Place your legs about hip-distance apart and rest your heels completely against the wall so that the wall can support the weight of your legs and your arms can rest comfortably on your sides.
Focus on:
Let gravity do the work. Feel the weight of your legs resting against the wall.
3. Cat-Cow (Marjaryasana-Bitilasana)
Slow, rhythmic movements, coordinated with steady breathing, help your body and mind release tension, allowing you to release stress and find a sense of calm and ease.
How:
Start on your hands and knees. Inhale as you lower your stomach and lift your chest in Cow Pose. Exhale as you round your spine and release your head toward the mat in Cat. Move slowly between the two.
Focus on:
Let each breath be your guide to moving in rhythm. Stay in each pose for more than one breath if you wish. As you transition between the two positions, feel how your body intuitively wants to move and let yourself follow that, whether that means moving more slowly, swaying sideways, or making wider circles by sliding your shoulders forward over your wrists and then shifting to the right side before taking your hips back over your heels and then to the left and repeat.
4. Seated Forward Bend (Paschimottanasana)
Suspended in a forward folded position combined with finding a slower, more relaxed breathing rhythm signals the body to relax, unwind and find a calm, grounded space.
How: Sit with your legs straight and bend your knees as often as necessary. Hinge forward from the hips and allow your spine to soften. Rest your hands on your shins, ankles, or a pillow.
Focus on: It’s not about how far you fold forward. It’s about the quality of your breathing and how much ease you can create in your body with each exhale.
5. Bound Angle Forward Bend (Baddha Konasana Uttanasana)
Also known as Butterfly Pose, this pose combines a gentle hip opening, forward bend and slowed breathing, allowing your muscles to melt and your mind to wander in ease and tranquility.
How: Sit up straight and bring the soles of your feet together so that your knees fall apart. Support your thighs with blocks or folded blankets if necessary. Bring your heels as close or as far from your hips as feels comfortable; If you move them slightly away from you, you can soften the pose and make it easier to spend more time here.
As you exhale, bend forward at the hips and allow your chest and head to fold toward your feet. Breathe here.
Focus on: Let your body relax without any effort or force. It will release in its own time.
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