If you feel like your day is out of control and you need some stress relief, consider doing yoga. Yoga offers many benefits. You can use it any time of day and help reduce the tension in your body. Yoga relieves stress in several ways. Controlled breathing can slow your heart rate and lower blood pressure. It reduces the impact of your stress mechanism and your body’s reaction to stress and calms your mind. It stretches the muscles and helps them relax.
The child pose is simple and well worth the effort for stress relief.
Start with your weight resting on the palms of your hands and knees with the front of your legs touching the floor. As you exhale, lower your bottom until it touches your heels. Extend your arms until your chest touches your thighs, your forehead is on the ground, and your arms are stretched out in front. Hold this pose until you feel the stress melt away.
Do part of a combination or the whole thing to relieve stress.
Two poses that bring stress relief are the cat pose and the cow pose. Combine them to relieve stress and back pain. The cat pose starts on your hands and knees. You move your head down as you arch your back like an angry cat. Hold for a few seconds and then release. The cow position starts on the hands and knees, too. Instead of lowering your head, you raise your head, dropping your belly instead of arching your back. Doing the two together almost massages your back.
Doing a cobra pose can bring stress relief.
A cobra pose starts by laying on the stomach with the tops of the feet on the floor. Your hands are under your shoulders and your arms are close to your body. Your elbow is bent with your fingers pointing forward. As you press your lower body from the ribs down onto the floor, you push your upper body up with your hands, exhaling as you do it. Straighten your arms and hold for 30 seconds.
- Three-part breathing can calm you. Breathe in through the nose, filling your lungs first then your belly. Have one hand on your chest and the other on your belly. Feel the belly grow smaller as you exhale, then empty the lungs.
- Many traditional bodyweight exercises are also yoga poses. Do a bridge or plank to bring stress relief as it builds core muscles. Both are yoga poses. When you end the pose, you’ll feel your body relax.
- The uttanasana is an intense toe-touching style exercise. You need to warm your muscles first, so it should be at the end of the poses. You bend at the waist and touch the floor palms down. Bend as far as you comfortably can.
- The legs-up-the-wall pose starts seated with your body close to the wall. Lay your upper body back and put your legs on the wall with your knees straight. Scoot your bottom as close to the wall with one hand on your belly and the other on your chest. Hold for up to 15 minutes.
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