Scientific Basis of Yoga for Stress Management

Natural sagacity tells us that yoga helps us to regulate stress by enhancing relaxation and holistic wellbeing. But knowing the scientific facts after the calming power of yoga can empower us to take a more active approach to a less stressed life, which enables us to achieve more positive health results.

HOW DOES STRESS IMPACT OUR HEALTH? AND HOW DOES YOGA HELP?

We tend to think of all stress as bad, but healthy levels of positive stress – eustress – can help us perform at our best. However, too much negative stress is associated with mental health imbalances and chronic pain, along with many of the industrial world’s major killers, including heart disease, stroke, and cancer. It’s important to recognise that the stress doesn’t necessarily cause these diseases. Research suggests that the greatest predictor of whether you will suffer from these diseases or not is not how much stress you experience, but how you deal with and think about stress. Those who have more negative emotions bounded by stress are more likely to experience negative health outcomes.Yoga is a helpful tool for managing stress as it helps us regulate emotional response to stress by teaching us to become the observer of our thoughts and feelings, and through improving our mind-body connection. As a result yoga can lead to mare positive health outcomes.

YOGA helps us manage stress both in terms of how we view it and by activating the relaxation response and decreasing cortisol.Yoga practitioners are also more likely to make healthy lifestyle choices.

HOW DOES AN IMPROVED MIND-BODY CONNECTION HELP US MANAGE STRESS?

Because yoga includes practices that engage both our body and mind, it helps us to regulate our system through both top-down and bottom-up pathways. Enhancing your mind-body and body-mind connections increases our ability to self-regulate and improve our resilience.This occurs partly due to complex workings of our vagus nerve.

NEUROCOGNITIVE (MIND-BODY) PATHWAY:- 1. Meditation, mindful movement, and intentional living based on the philosophical teachings of yoga increase our attention. 2. Increased attention regulates our nervous system and help us maintain homeostasis more efficiently.

NEUROPHYSIOLOGICAL (BODY-MIND) PATHWAY:- 1.Yoga practices such as asanas, mudras, and pranayama, give us internal body awareness. 2. This awareness affects our autonomic nervous system (ANS), which changes our thoughts and neural pathways, building our brain and improving self-regulation.