5 Easy Asanas to Release Stress 

Most of the time tapping into the connection with our creative self means we might need to unpack our relationship with stress and learn how to harness our creativity. .  Staying in tune with our inner spiritual powers while keeping our body, mind, and soul united is certainly not an easy task for everyone. And that’s where yoga can work wonders!

Yoga can help us as a way to tune into the breath and use it to support us as we navigate the waters of mind and emotions. In Sanskrit Yoga means union. It is the joining between individual and God;  first by connecting the individual with God, and next by making the body as a whole entity working together with consciousness as part of an ordered system. To reach this goal, Patanjali introduced the Sutras in 400 CE and the basic text of Yoga which prescribes eight stages of increasing skills in controlling consciousness. One of these first stages seems to be the “asanas” ,or in other words, ways of “sitting” or holding postures for long periods of time without succumbing to strain or fatigue.

As Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi claims in his best-selling book, “Flow”, Yoga is a thoroughly planned flow activity which tries to achieve a joyous, self-forgetful involvement through concentration, which in turn is made possible by the discipline of the body. Indeed Yogic sages have known for thousands of years that asanas is the portal through which we can transform stress and anxiety while accessing a state of inner calm and grounded balance. Next time you might feel stressed try to practice one of the asanas that are known for generating balanced energy and rejuvenating the immuno organs. These are the tortoise pose, any inversion and forward bends, chest and lung openers, and restorative poses.

Here are  5 yoga poses that if  practised daily can slow the racing mind. If you try to spend at least 3-5 minutes in each posture you’ll probably notice that your breathing becomes slower and the mind less distracted. Lets find out which are the specific benefits of each asana on our nervous system

• Legs up The Wall – is great for relieving lower back pain and easing anxiety symptoms, in addition to relieving arthritis discomfort, menstrual cramping, reducing insomnia and lowering high blood pressure
• Child’s pose – Child’s pose helps to release tension in the back, neck and shoulders, which are areas that seem to hold a lot of stress for most people.

• Cat/Cow  pose – The tension that usually accompanies anxiety can create rigidity in the body, so moving in a fluid way in sync with your   breathing can feel liberating.

• Standing Forward Bend – The combination of the forward fold, and inversion, make standing bending forward a powerful, calming pose. It is suggested to be used with visualisation (we use s) guidance such as, “try to feel as if you are falling off of the crown of your head and being released into the earth”.

• Corpse Pose – the sense of complete stillness in the body that accompanies this pose helps to encourage stillness in the mind. In case the practitioner feels when in this pose, that the mind is going into thoughts, it might be a good time to use a positive statement such as, “I am calm,” or, “I let go”.