How yoga supports mental health: Anxiety, depression, and stress relief

Mental health is a state of mind characterized by emotional well-being, good behavioural adjustment, relative freedom from anxiety and disabling symptoms, and a capacity to establish constructive relationships and cope with the ordinary demands and stresses of life.

Signs and symptoms include:

• Feeling sad or down• Confused thinking or reduced ability to concentrate• Excessive fears or worries, or extreme feelings of guilt• Extreme mood changes of highs and lows• Significant tiredness, low energy or problems sleeping• Trouble understanding and relating to situations and to people• Inability to cope with daily problems or stress

Causes:

• Inherited traits.• Environmental exposure : environmental stressor , inflammatory condition, toxins ,alcohol or drugs • Brain chemistry.

Complications:

• Cardiovascular diseases • Digestive disorders • Social isolation • Relationship difficulty • Sleeping difficulty.

Yogic management :

• Yogic breathing • Meditation • Mindfulness • Yoga asana

Yoga asana :

• Suryanamaskara • Virapadrasana 1 and 2 • Trikonasana • Makarsana • Vriksasana • Kati chakrasana • Bhujangasana • Anandha balasana • Balasana • Baddhakonasana • Shavasana

Meditation :

1. Transcendental Meditation 2. Guided imagery 3. Mantra Meditation 4. Cyclic Meditation

Yogic Breathing :

• Nadi shodhana pranayama • Bhramari pranayama • Ujjayi pranayama • Bhastrika pranayama • Box breathing • Marjariasana breathing

Procedure for practice :

Trikonasana : Triangle pose

Procedure :

1. Spread your legs two to three feet apart.2. Turn your right feet towards right side and left feet slightly towards right side.3. Inhale and rise your both the hands to shoulder level 4. And while exhaling bend at your right side (slide from the knees and go down)5. And try to catch hold of your right ankle .Don’t lean forward or backward .6. Inhale and come up and release your hands.7. Exhale and release your legs and practice the same on other side ..

Benefits:

1. Helps in improving concentration 2. Helps in improving stability and balance 3. Reduce stress and anxiety 4. Improve flexibility

Contraindications :

1. Recent surgery: hip, knee, spine 2. Ankle Injury Nadi shodhana pranayama : Helps in balancing the nadis

Procedure :

• Sit in a comfortable meditative posture (I.e padmasana , sukasana ,vajrasana or ardha padmasana )• Close your eyes and relax , place your both hand in chin mudra.• Now place your left hand in chin mudra and right hand in nasikagra mudra (which means your index and middle finger close rest other open)• Now try to close your right nostril with the help of your thumb finger and inhale through left nostril, now close the left nostril with ring finger and slowly exhale through right nostril.• Now slowly inhale through right nostril by closing the left with ring finger and exhale through left nostril by closing the right with thumb finger..• This complete one rounds and can practice upto 5 rounds..

Benefits :

1. Increase the amount of oxygen within the body 2. Purifies the body by excreting toxins3. Rejuvenate the nervous system 4. Balance between right and left hemisphere of brain 5. Reduce stress and helps in balancing the hormones.

Conclusion:

Thus yoga helps in maintaining the autonomic Balance and has a role in maintaining the neurotransmitters. It has role on hypothalamus pituitary axis, the peripheral nervous system including GABA, limbic system activity and endocrine response. Yoga along with antidepressant can help in reducing the depressive symptoms in people’s. So it’s concluded that yoga is an ideal complementary amd alternative therapy for mental health disorders..(To Dr Narendra K Shetty Chief Wellness Officer, Kshemavana Naturopathy and Yoga Center)