Yoga: Bye Bye Anxiety! (VIDEO)

I hitched a ride back to my hotel tonight from the car rental place and learned a few very important lessons from the driver. He asked if I was in town for work or fun, and happily I got to reply "both." My work is fun. I told him a little bit about what I do with yoga. He told me his kids have yoga in school and they come home and show off their moves. We both agreed kids are already so limber and usually don't have the psychological blocks that we build up over time.

He grew up in Mexico and moved to LA when he was 12, along with his family. He's married with 2 little kids ages 4 and 6. I would guess he is a few years shy of 30. He started talking to me about his stress levels. He said a few months ago he wasn't feeling very well. He went to the doctor who diagnosed him with depression, and gave him a prescription for anxiety medication. Ouch. He said he took a few of the pills but didn't notice any difference, and realized the root of the problem was stress. From that point on he realized he had his own ability to do something about his problem, and he wasn't in need of any pills.

My new pal told me he had figured out how to relax his brain and enjoy himself. To me that's yoga, and he knew how to practice. There isn't a big mystical mystery to solve, figure out, or drop yourself into here. To the extent that any of this is mysterious at all, it's just that these things get covered up by our everyday lives. It was this covering up that lead my friend to the doctor first, before he recognized that he already had what he needed. The solutions reside within, and are brought to the surface in different ways for each one of us.

For my new pal, it took him a trip to the doctor and a prescription for anxiety pills to realize he could do something about his condition. He told me he now keeps his bedroom clear for resting and sleep. No computer, paperwork, or TV, just rest and relaxation. That's a great tip we all could use. We have to make time and routines to wind down from all of the things that can cause anxiety. We can come back to our stuff at the appropriate time. Worry never solves any problems. He told me when he rests properly he feels more equipped psychologically to deal with day-to-day things when they arise. Things have a proper place now and don't dominate his life.

We all have anxiety to some degree. Stress is something that needs to be managed or we can spin out of control, causing ourselves all kinds of real physical and psychological problems. Making time, even in small amounts, for rest and relaxation is necessary for our bodies and minds to function properly and be able to keep things in perspective. Use what you need. Rest what you don't. That's efficiency. Think of how well we can function when we are aren't holding tension where it isn't needed. Everything gets easier, even the hard things. No matter what your goals or day-to-day existence entails, we can all use this kind of efficiency. This is a routine I came up with when I got back to my hotel, inspired by my new pal who reminded me to relax my brain.

 

 

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Comments

[schminkey]

People who are interpreting Tara's message as "Try yoga to fix everything" aren't getting it. I am an LCSW that works with people with chronic mental illness, including depression and severe anxiety. I encourage them to try yoga, and I teach some simple poses. My patients often have very complex circumstances -- histories of trauma, current life stressors that are quite overwhelming, biological predispositions to mental illnesses. But everyone has to start someplace, and when my patients don't know where to start to address their problems, I encourage them to start with the basics. Make sure you have good enough nutrition --- breakfast --- and good enough oxygen feeding your brain. Yoga helps them learn to breathe better, which helps their brains work better, which helps them better approach the problems they are facing. It also helps them be more in tune to what they are feeling and thinking, which then helps guide them to make decisions that are helpful rather than harmful. Yes, some still need medications, but often they find they need LESS medications when they start taking care of the basics.

[aabbey]

I'm a big fan of Tara; I follow her videos and practice them, along with my own yoga class 1x a week I take here in Jerusalem. That said, anxiety reduction isn't as simple as Tara and most posters state. There is anxiety hard-wired into the brain from birth - and it takes a combination of factors - love, exercise, diet, environment, community, maybe medication, and therapy, whether it is with a counselor, a friend, a spouse, over a beer, in a diary, in a poem, in a book....It takes a lot of work. We see it in our middle son - there are a lot of things we can do for him - and there are things he can do for himself - and things he can't. So, I am glad all of those who say it is a simple choice can make that choice. But not everyone can, and it can be, in fact, troublesome (and anxiety inducing) to anxiety sufferers to tell them that they simply can choose not to have anxiety. Sorry, it doesn't work that way.

[mjt96]

Great point about the absence of mystical mysteries to solve. Everything is already right here. It's a little shocking, maybe, but not mystical in the inaccessible someone else needs to find it for me sense. You should take these cab rides often.

[kenechee]

I find yoga, with all those funny positions and mutterings, far too stressful to learn.

[N3M3siS]

After being laid off (permanetly) from my well paying job and having a third kiddo on the way, my anxiety and blood pressure went out of control making it impossible to lay down and sleep and cope with everyday stressfull situations. Short story, I got stage 1 hypertension and a terrible attitude. Having no insurance at the time, me and my wife started looking for alternatives that would help me feel normal again. Having tried everything under the book including mantra breathing and stretching, we came to the conclusion that my body was fighting itself from the inside out thus continuing my hypertension and anxiety. My darling's family is Native American and had all of the answers we were looking for.
1. Start a regimen of Pressur-lo which has all of the nutrients your heart and circulatory sytem needs to operate properly. 2 in the A.M., once at Lunch, and two more at DInner.
2. An hour before bedtime, take 2 Humulus Lupulu (hops) 440 mg capsules.
I feel like a new man and can be my old self for my wife again. I went from 160/100 to 100/70 in three weeks of use.

[bikerdude]

Thank you Tara. That was a great article and video...I am new to yoga, and I am so happy I started. It is the link I was missing between my physical and spiritual life.

[Ed and Deb Shapiro - Huffpost Blogger]

Hello Tara - Hello Luv

Hello PEACE

from an e-friend and admirer

Continue

Yoga is a way of life,

Paramahansa Swami Brahmananda (aka Ed)

[Tara Stiles - Huffpost Blogger]

Thanks for the conversation and thoughts everyone. It's much appreciated. . . Hi Ed!!!!!! xo

"There are other planes of consciousness available to us all the time. We each have all the clues we need to recognize those other planes, when we're not so busy denying them." Ram Dass

[lungfish]

I practice breath-hold diving, I am a freediving instructor. Naturally the relationship to breath-work is obvious. You can't dive without scuba to 30 or 40 meters without being in the moment and focused...

At the same time, I have terrific anxiety problems. Sometimes the stress gets so bad that I can't eat, leave the house, etc.. the physical sensation is like a large and discordant mass in my abdomen. I try it all. Pranayama type breathing that we use to train... I go out to sea alone and try to leave it on shore and focus - there are dangers out there of all kinds and I have to be integrated with the environment - but I don't quite get there and I underperform. Its all waiting when I haul out on shore.

I rationalize, I tell myself that this will also pass... but the fears are just as intense and refuse to be quelled.

Yoga is nice and talking about it in an advice column is nice also. At the same time the advice seems to fall far short of what a person really needs to put the stress demon away. About the only thing that seems to help, in the short term is a large dose of xanax or a joint... I am usually far too paralyzed when stress hits to do anything much less a new yoga routine...

[jozzie]

Try staring at your anxiety.

And then decide which direction you want to go -- freaking out or dropping it.

It's your choice. And it's that simple.

If you choose to drop the anxiety, you won't be exhausting yourself running away from it. The way to not be in the spiral is to drop it, not run up it. Anxiety will come back at some point in the future, but then you just reapply dropping it. After a while anxiety won't be a big issue because you've experienced the simplicity of dealing with it.

Pot creates paranoia eventually. That is not a good cure for anxiety ultimately.

Pills are a cover-up. Anxiety has a child-like component to it. Do you think someone else in your life should fix it for you -- should fix life for you? Do you know that no one will, but this verity frightens you? If you ever get to the point where you admit no one will fix anything, that's the time when you can really stare anxiety down and drop it.

Also: try Zen Buddhist meditation, in a Sangha (a community of mediators). But don't use the Sangha as a crutch. Best wishes.

[lungfish]

Thank you for your reply...
I know that drugs only provide temporary relief and I rarely use them, can't dive safely under the influence.... but they do offer a marked break from the sensation.. Pot, if overused can bring paranoia for some folks. I don't use it that often and I get a positive experience from it. I hate perscription drugs and try to avoid them unless I am crippled and haven't slept in days.
I know the answer lies within my choices. Perhaps there is something deeper, PTSD of some kind that I am triggering on.. It just gets to a point where I am paralyzed and even taking care of my mind through sitting meditation and breathwork doesn't penetrate or dispel the sensation.
I know what fear is and I am fine with that. I have encounters with sharks, deep dives that challenge my endurance without air, and a host of other things that can trigger fear. I am good with those, they are transient and there is something that can be done, always. I know that the only thing that serves me there is "calm"...
Its the long term fears that compound things.
Thanks for the suggestions. I will look more closely...

[Ed and Deb Shapiro - Huffpost Blogger]

jozzie's advice is spot on - i chose her as a HuffPost Pick

she is really sying something about the pot/grass etc. I am speaking from experience. Pot is toxic when you have anxiety or any chronic problem

what can ne helpful is to watch the mind as in vipassana meditation where you become aware of the thinking mind, then dramas fears and anxiety .. see them for what they are. Don't try to change or drop anything just be the witness and breathe natually.

I have been teaching meditation worldwide for over 30 years.

Make friends with your anxiety.. invite it in for tea.

May you be happy,

Swami Brahmananda (Ed)

[wm1066]

In the 70's I took a class on Bioenergetics and what they had us do was lay on the ground and bend our knees so that the balls of the feet and the upper back, head and arms were the only parts of the body touching the ground, we formed a triangular shape from the side view. You had to arch your feet on the balls of the foot and depending on were the feet were on the ground this caused the body to uncontrolably shake.The vibrations would go right up into your chest area. You could only hold this position for about a minute before you collapsed on the ground, but you experienced a huge relaxation from this. I have found that if I shake my forearms from sid to side this also causes shaking that can take over on its own, and this seems to bleed off anxiety. It sounds funny but it does work.

[bmonaghan]

Lovely post. I just want to add that Holy Basil is wonderful herb to help the body recover from stress and anxiety. It is adrenal adaptogen, which helps the adrenal glands recover from pumping all the adrenaline and cortisol into our bodies, which can lead to our moods feeling somewhat like a rollercoaster ride. It levels them out. I found a wonderful blend called "Holy Tea" at http://www.homegrownherbandtea.com. I like theirs because they blend it with several other adaptogens plus herbs that are rich in minerals and vitamins, that tend to get depleted during stress. So much of what we consume is little more than satifying a physical craving - for hunger, caffeine, sweets... but this satisfies the soul. Best of luck!

[MelaniePMc]

I recently became aware of Tara's work and am very impressed. Great routine!