Yoga and Stress - No Yoga Pill:

6 billion U.S. dollars on one type of pill! My mind reels as I read latest Fortune magazine about what great investments the stocks of drug companies are. Last year in the U.S. alone 4.6 billion dollars was spent on Prilosec, a drug for the treatment of ulcers. Number three on the list "top ten selling drugs" is another ulcer pill, Prevacid. Other top sellers include drugs for high cholesterol and heart disease. Few of us would disagree that all of these conditions are linked almost directly to stress. The fact that we need some serious stress management could not be clearer! If we could get stress under control, we could reduce the symptoms that come in the form of disease and significantly reduce our consumption of pills. Even sales of Viagra would probably plummet!

One of the best stress reducing prescriptions was created thousands of years ago - yoga. But how does this ancient art reduce our current epidemic of "off the Richter" stress levels?

It isn't an easy thing to do, because our whole society has come to thrive on stress - that adrenaline producing "fight or flight" state of mind. So many of us are walking around in our lives with a pressing, anxious feeling that, "it all has to be done now". Or worrying about things in the future - a whole series of "what if's" that we can't really control. In my opinion it is sometimes those "low level" stress events like the neighbours dog barking at 1:30 a.m. that most creates this state of dis-ease. A lot of us don't even feel good without that adrenaline fueling us. When we aren't in that elevated state of mind, we feel sluggish and run out for a quick latte at the local coffee shop!

Yoga Asanas (poses) definitely reduce stress. They rid the body of toxins, balance out the nervous system, and make us feel a natural kind of high than Prozak could never even come close to. Usually after a yoga class stress isn't even a factor in our lives. But it is so important to realize that just doing the poses is not enough to minimize stress in your life because the physical "yoga high" wears off. The state of mind with which we do the poses is of utmost importance. I mean, you could leave yoga class feeling calm and serene - completely on top of the world. Then, on your drive home some erratic driver cuts you off or you get stuck behind a left-hand turner at a green light and that sets you off. That "fight or flight" mode of thinking returns and immediately all the calming effects of the yoga you just did will be blown!

Clearly if we want to develop the tools to reduce stress in our minds, we have to apply a little yoga philosophy to our asana practice. And then take this "yoga mind" with us into our daily lives. In relation to stress, the main thing I feel we need to learn is that the only thing we can truly control in our lives is our perception and reactions to things that happen, have happened or may or may not ever happen.

By contrast, stress is caused by our minds reacting to things we want to control but can't. Our minds refuse to succumb to the unavoidable fact that wanted things may never happen (even though we want them to happen right now, damn it!!) and unwanted things happen. In our yoga practice, it is important to never lose sight of the fact that even though you are developing all kinds of amazing physical qualities like strength, flexibility, balance and coordination, the most amazing workout is happening in your mind. Use the breath as a tool to be calm during all postures, especially the challenging ones. Listen to your what is going on in your mind. Are you reacting to things you can't control, like tightness in your hamstrings, like how long the instructor is holding you in the pose, even about whether someone walked in late and disturbed you? If so, you are going to create tension in the mind because all of these things ultimately are out of your control.

Simply be as non-reactive as you can be and try and view every situation in a positive light. The key that even advanced yogis tend to forget is that what you are doing is less important than how you are doing it. Remember that basic principle - you can only control your perceptions and your reactions. Keep them all positive! After practicing this principle in your asanas, you can then apply it to your daily life. Eventually things that used to seem stressful to you will seem more and more trivial as you face challenging situations in life with a little voice in your head saying, "Relax. Ahhh. Just breathe." For most of us it takes practice to develop this mind set. There will probably never be a pill invented that can do this for you!

Keep it Blissful,

Eoin