Yoga for stress relief comes highly recommended. By encouraging mental and physical relaxation, yoga is an excellent form of stress relief. As you move through a variety of poses and regulate your breathing, you’ll find that regular yoga practice helps to alleviate anxiety and lower your stress levels.
How Can Yoga Aid Stress Relief?
The physicality of yoga acts as a form of stress relief as it quite literally helps to ease stress – or tension – in the body’s musculature. As you increase your core strength, improve stability and become more flexible, you’ll find that you’re intrinsically more aware of where and how your body holds tension – and more equipped to release it.
Yoga is also a great way to release endorphins, which are the body’s natural mood-booster. Known as ‘feel-good chemicals’, endorphins are hormones that act on the brain to lower stress and anxiety and increase feelings of happiness and satisfaction. When you undertake exercise, like yoga, it triggers an endorphin release that can improve your mood, reduce stress, and increase your sense of well-being.
Yoga’s focus on breathwork can also be a sure-fire way to reduce stress. Controlled breathing directly affects the body’s parasympathetic nervous system and, in turn, can lower blood pressure, reduce heart rate and helps ensure that the right amount of oxygen travels to the brain. Yogic breathing – or pranayama – encompasses a variety of breathing exercises that help to regulate how you breathe, thus helping you feel calm, relaxed and rejuvenated.
Goji London Loves These
If you want to reduce anxiety and practice yoga for stress relief, take a look at our favourite asanas for lowering stress levels:
Standing Forward Fold Pose (Uttanasana)
From a standing neutral position, engage your core and fold forwards at the hips with your knees bent. Remember to exhale as you fold and move your weight to the balls of your feet. As you hold each elbow with the opposite hand, soften the muscles around your neck, face and shoulders and clear your mind. Don’t fret about your flexibility, this is yoga for stress relief not the Olympics!
Cat Pose (Marjaryasana)
Begin on your hands and knees facing the floor and draw your stomach towards your spine as you exhale. Round your head and tilt the crown of your head towards the floor, in the same way a cat arches its back, and repeat the movement. Remember to keep your arms straight and your shoulders relaxed to gain flexibility in your spine.
Corpse Pose (Savasana)
If you’ve attended yoga for stress relief London classes before, you may remember that many classes end with corpse pose, and that’s because it’s such a good form of relaxation!
Simply lay flat on your back with your arms at your sides, palms up towards the ceiling. Close your eyes and relax the muscles in and around your face. Breathe deeply as you focus your mind on each part of your body, starting at the top of your head and working you way down to your toes, releasing the muscles in each part as you go.
Like all forms of exercise, you should consult with a medical practitioner before embarking on a new regime and modify poses according to your abilities and health. Many doctors support the use of yoga for stress relief so it should be straightforward.
Best Classes for Stress Relief in London
If you want to reduce stress with yoga, head straight to the Goji London studio! You’ll find all of our yoga classes are designed to help lower stress, alleviate anxiety, boost wellbeing and improve your energy levels. In particular, our Go Chill classes feature slow, grounding practice and meditative guidance – and are a fantastic stress-buster!
Book your class here!
To start your journey to peace and relaxation, head to our class schedule and book your place at a yoga for stress relief class now.