Best Yoga Poses For Anxiety Relief

Anybody who has ever been outside their home has realized that the hustle of life can easily become the cause of some serious anxiety and stress. Just take a look at anybody, and you will be able to see their worry lines on their forehead. But not to fear; by incorporating some yoga moves when you are feeling overwhelmed with anxiety and stress, you can easily help relieve those symptoms and get back to being you. But before we can relieve your anxiety, we must first understand what anxiety is. [This post contains affiliate links]

What Is Anxiety Anyways?

In general, anxiety is a mental disorder that can cause you to feel worried, nervous, fearful or even apprehensive. If you have anxiety, you essentially get a feeling of being overwhelmed when you think of things in the future.

For example, you may start feeling anxious and nervous when you think of having to go to work on Monday.

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When you are having an anxiety attack, it can also affect how you behave. If the symptoms last for a prolonged amount of time, they can even start to physically affect you as well. There is no other way to put it, anxiety is just plain unsettling, and even though a mild amount may not be that serious, a more severe attack can be so bad as to negatively affect your everyday life.

You’re probably thinking that you always have an anxiety attack every time you are faced with a new challenge. In this instance, feeling a little worried or intimidated is 100% normal. It’s when your worry starts to affect your sleep, how you feel, and the way your body functions that it starts to become a concern.

Anxiety is typically a reaction that has been blown out of proportion compared to what is normally expected when faced with a certain situation.

Now that we know what anxiety is, how can yoga help to relieve the symptoms of it?

How Can Yoga Help With Anxiety Relief?

Yoga is great for helping to relax you and calm any type of anxiety that you may be feeling. Yoga will give you a full body stretch, as well as stimulate some of the different hormones within your body.

On top of that, it also helps to heal your nervous system. This healing of your nervous system will cause your body to release endorphins, the happy hormones. These alone will help alleviate any anxiety and help you start to feel better.

Stretching has been proven to relax your body and also calm your mind. By doing this, your body will be able to release any tension that may be trapped within it more easily.

Here are some of the best yoga poses for anxiety relief.

Best Yoga Poses For Anxiety Relief

Here are some of the best yoga poses that you can add to your daily routine to calm your mind and relax your body. These are especially helpful for when you are feeling anxious and worried.

Do your best to spend about 3-5 minutes doing each pose to get the maximum benefits. Remember that while doing yoga will help to alleviate some of your anxiety symptoms, it is not by any means a cure for anxiety. But by you enjoying these poses, you will be helping to nurture your mind and body.

• Child’s Pose

During yoga, Child’s Pose is often used to rest. It is common for people to use Child’s Pose to relax and regroup between more challenging poses. It is very useful in releasing tension in the shoulders, back, and neck, which is where many people tend to hold their stress.

Child’s Pose also helps promote relaxation through steady, conscious breathing, which ultimately helps to calm the nervous system.

When using Child’s Pose to help relieve anxiety, feel free to hold the pose for as long as you would like to. When you have finished, slowly move back to an upright position and make a note of how relaxed you are feeling.

• Tree Pose

The Tree Pose is a fundamental pose when it comes to easing your anxiety. When you implement basic balances, you are promoting focus, awareness, and concentration. These all take your mind away from your anxiety and put the attention on yourself.

The best thing about Tree Pose is that you can do it literally anywhere you can stand up. Standing in line at the grocery store, while eating lunch, or even waiting to cross the street. This makes it one of the best yoga poses for anxiety relief.

If you feel anxiety creeping in, simply go into Tree Pose.

• Warrior III

Once you are comfortable balancing on one leg, the Warrior III pose will help you to lengthen, strengthen and challenge yourself. This pose will not only help to improve your core strength, coordination, posture, and balance; it also helps stimulate your abdominal area, which will improve your digestion. And this is imperative when it comes to fighting anxiety according to recent studies.

Plus, since Warrior III is a more challenging pose, it will shift your mindset to focusing on your pose, which takes it away from your anxiety.

• Legs Up The Wall Pose

Legs Up The Wall Pose is excellent when it comes to relieving lower back tightness and pain, as well as the symptoms of anxiety. Plus it helps relieve menstrual cramping, arthritis discomfort, lowers high blood pressure and reduces insomnia.

When it comes to anxiety, depending on the severity, it can just plain ruin your day. By implementing anxiety relief techniques like the yoga moves listed above, you will be able to keep yourself calm and your anxiety at bay.

What makes yoga for anxiety relief even better is that you can do it anywhere. It does not take much space to do any of the yoga moves that will help you relieve your anxiety.

Just try to spend a few minutes doing each pose, and you will feel yourself start to feel a lot calmer, more relaxed, and more like yourself.

This article is originally published on SundayScaries.

Understand what anxiety really is, how yoga poses can help scientifically, and some great yoga poses to try next time you feel anxiety