The benefits of yoga are vast. It promotes physical well-being and enhances mental clarity, rejuvenating the body and bringing ultimate peace to the practitioner. Practicing yoga with patience can provide instant gratification and lasting transformation. You can forget your body aches and pains once you start practicing yoga. It improves flexibility and builds muscle strength.
The top 3 reasons people do yoga are the enjoyment of yoga itself, yoga’s impact on health and yoga as a stress reliever
Apart from correcting your posture, it also offers other health benefits like increasing blood circulation, reducing blood pressure, and boosting heart rate and immunity. Consistent yoga practice can also keep depression at bay. Keep reading to learn how it can do so.
Yoga Can Help Ease Depression
Yoga deep breathing and meditation exercises help in releasing stress. It also helps those struggling with depression or anxiety caused by trauma. When you experience emotional stress, your brain releases hormones that can cause health complications.
Research says that some yoga exercises can drastically improve your mood by fighting depression.
They help you keep the bad vibes and negativity away by stretching your body and releasing tension. Here are a few Yoga poses that can cure anxiety and depression. If you ever feel down and upset, try one of these poses, and you will see your stress vanish.
Yoga Poses That Can Cure Anxiety
1. Warrior Pose
Along with strengthening the core and legs, the Warrior Pose can ease depression, stress, and anxiety. It improves breathing and posture and reduces any discomfort in the tissues of the chest and lungs. Place your foot forward and raise your arms, lining them while arching your back. Inhale and exhale as you bend your knee and turn your hips towards the other side. The gentle bend eases the body and helps you focus.
2. Upward Facing Dog Pose
This pose can also reduce fatigue. It focuses on stretching the body along with improving the posture by strengthening the arms and stimulating the abs. It can also significantly improve your mood. It lengthens the entire body as you open up in the posture and simultaneously breathe without locking your knees.
3. The Bridge Pose
It might be challenging, but once you know how to do it, the Bridge Pose can calm your nerves and relax your mind. All you need to do is lie down and raise your back and knees off the floor and hold the pose. It stiffens the spine and calms your central nervous system. As you inhale and lift your body away from the floor, it will get rid of any discomfort or stress in the body and leave you feeling peaceful.
4. The Child’s Pose
Here’s another pose that can cure depression. It relieves stress and fatigue by stretching the lower back and hips. For the pose, you need to sit on your heels and rest your lower belly and chest in between your knees. Your forehead must touch the floor. The pose relaxes your arms, and as you breathe softly through the pose, you will feel all the negativity leave your body.
5. The Corpse Pose
As simple as it may seem, the Corpse Pose is considered to be a crucial pose in yoga asanas.
All you need to do is lie back and let your body free. Move your arms and legs away and lie there. It helps you reap all the benefits of the practice and is mostly done at the end of the session. It relaxes the body and calms the brain. It eliminates tension and rejuvenates the body from within.
These are a few yoga poses that can help relax the body, and you will realize that it could be one of the best ways to fight depression. Depression can be difficult to cope with and get over. In addition, no amount of antidepressants can compete with the benefits of yoga. When it comes to Yoga, it heals your body in the most pleasant way possible. Moreover, you will gradually see depression disappear and also get back the benefits of Yoga for good health.
How Yoga Helps Cure Depression – Science-Backed Evidence
Science is starting to provide concrete clues as to how yoga can enhance our lives by improving mental and physical health. Research reveals that yoga not only cures depression but also reduces anxiety and even substance dependence. It does so by balancing the serotonin and endorphin levels and producing natural chemical compounds that support brain cell growth.
Studies proved that even stretching and doing yoga poses for 15-20 minutes can decrease depression by nearly 30%. However, exercises or mild cardio can elevate your mood, the balancing and strengthening exercises by yoga can combat depression significantly by balancing the brain chemistry and stress hormones.
To make the most of yoga, it is crucial to practice it on a regular basis. It works more effectively than workout. Try these Yoga poses that can cure anxiety and depression and experience their effects. Once you start noticing how it enhances your health and mental stability, you will surely get more motivation to step onto your mat the next time.
