Why I think Yoga is the Most Underrated Tool for Mental and Physical Health
I think yoga is the most underrated tool in the modern world.
That’s a bold statement, I realize. I also believe it with every fiber of my being so I’ll elaborate for anyone who’s interested in my perspective.
I’ve been teaching yoga for 17 years, but before it was my full time gig, I worked for a hospital system. It was my role to gather a team of professionals and community members to research the greatest health needs of the community. Once the greatest needs were determined, we developed plans to create change in hopes to move the needle towards healthier community members.
Since then, I’ve worked to help local health departments with the same types of studies so I’m still privy to the data of local health needs.
The top needs in central Illinois don’t seem to change much despite intervention. The top health concerns here are also not so different from the top needs everywhere in the country. Hypertension, binge drinking, depression and mental illness, tobacco use, obesity, cancer, high rates of STD’s; these are common issues in the US.
While I believe that diet and exercise and education ARE important, I think we are overlooking the MOST IMPORTANT thing. We are zooming right over the fact that stress management tools are non existent in our modern world.
Stress = high cortisol and high adrenaline = inflammation = hormone disruption = depression…. You get the picture. The hormonal component of stress on physical and mental simply cannot be ignored anymore.
People aren’t just hypertensive and overweight because they don’t eat right or exercise. Often times, they do. It’s the constant surge of stress hormones with no opportunities for rest that are causing high levels of inflammation and disrupting every body system’s natural rhythm. These stress hormones tell your body to abandon the rest and digest state where normal body system regulation happens, and instead, head into fight or flight. Once this part of the nervous system is turned on, the heart rate increases, blood sugar surges, substances meant to repair tissues decrease, immune response and digestion slow, and the parts of the brain that control your mood are interrupted. This is a beautiful system when acute stress happens. However, we tend to just exist here indefinitely and our bodies are literally damaged at a cellular level when stress is rampant with no rest.
Even if your job or life isn’t “stressful,” the constant go go go of our current lifestyle can be, and our bodies don’t know the difference between running from a saber tooth tiger and constantly being bombarded by emails and phone dings. It turns on the same stress hormones either way. We jump from one stressful thing to the next, and our nervous systems, which are beautifully wired to deal with the expected short bursts of stress, are simply not wired for the constant stream of chaos we subject ourselves to.
The other areas people tend to struggle with in general like binge drinking, tobacco use, binge eating, risky sex; are all unhealthy methods used to try and reroute maxed out brains. These behaviors help people escape the discomfort of their disregulated hormonal state. I wonder if these habits would lessen or never be turned to in the first place if we had well developed coping skills.
Beyond all that, our achievement based society conditions us to never be happy with where we are right now, when in fact NOW is the only time we have. We think the next high of new achievement, a new house, new job, new outfit, new partner, new opportunity - will finally be the one to bring happiness. But true happiness is a result of doing the inner work on ourselves. It’s a byproduct of the destination but not the destination itself. We are on a hamster wheel that leads us nowhere. No wonder the distractions of booze and cigs feel so great.
Therapy has helped me figure out a lot of my blocks and the things that lead to my own personal version of nervous system chaos and general unhappiness. I wish everyone could go. Therapy is great. Therapy is also expensive, hard to get into, and a last resort for many folks. The hospital system I worked for spent millions on a mental health program that ultimately closed. Folks are left waitlisted for months and that’s IF they can afford it.
What if we integrated some free and easy and always accessible methods for stress management? Methods that could be taught from a young age and done alongside therapy or even on their own when therapy isn’t accessible?
Sounds too good to be true, but it’s not. The yogis were onto something all those years ago. All you need to practice true yoga is your body and your breath.
Most people in the west think of yoga as skinny white people in expensive leggings bending themselves into pretzel shapes. While I think that that IS in fact yoga to some people, and realize that some of my own portrayals of yoga may have contributed to this misrepresentation… that’s not ALL yoga is. It’s a TINY part, and certainly not the part that the masses will benefit from.
Yoga is, really:
Presence
Mindfulness
Meditation
Intentional Breath
Movement
Internal work of looking at the self
Simple ethics like non violence to self and others, truth, honesty
Self discipline
Contentment
Humility
These are the building blocks of true mental, physical and spiritual health and they are accessible to all. They use aren’t normalized and we’ve been given the OPPOSITE set of tools we need to achieve them.
Breath is the only thing we are born with and die with. It’s always with us. It has an IMMENSE impact on our nervous systems. A few deep breaths can change perspective and it can also change your stress hormones, blood pressure, and even your body temperature. It’s the most powerful yet most underused and underrated tool that could be taught to all little ones, all school children, athletes, and every single person in the workforce. Everyone can do it. EVERYONE. If nothing else - BREATHE. Breathe slowly, deeply, intentionally, and often. Try to be present while you do it.
Helping people learn to tap into their own minds via meditation can change the makeup of their brain chemistry. Really. There’s studies on the power of meditation. There’s studies on the power of a positive mindset on the prognosis of people with cancer, heart disease, and other ailments. It seems woo woo, but really? It’s science. It’s chemistry. It’s telling the stress hormones what to do when we control and reroute them via breath, rest, and mindfulness.
I realize it’s convenient for me to think all these things are the great answer to every problem when I own a yoga studio. But it’s true. I believe in the power of what we do more than I believe in probably anything. And I love to help the people who walk through our door, but I also genuinely want people to know they never have to walk through our door or any yoga studio door to experience the benefits of the practice. You can take 10 deep breaths every morning and download a meditation on your phone every evening at bedtime. When you get cut off in traffic or someone at work takes credit for your idea - take some breaths, recenter, re-regulate your nervous system. All of these tools are within you - you ALWAYS have access to them.
I wish that every school and office and healthcare facility had a yoga teacher on board to remind people of these things. To help people remember their breath. Remember to be present. Remember to honor themselves by unplugging now and then. If I had unlimited funds, I’d make that a thing. But maybe you could just put some sticky notes up in your home or office. BREATHE. BE HERE NOW.
What I can do is share what I know.
We offer free workshops for schoolteachers, parents and employers a few times a year and are happy to come to you with simple tools you can use to help. There’s no patent on breathing or mindfulness - we just teach people how to access what’s already inside. We also partner with businesses and schools to provide yoga. I’d love to bring as much yoga to as many people as we can. Feel free to reach out and set something up. Or follow us on social media, stop in for a class, or try one of our online classes. If nothing else - please remember that you ALWAYS have your breath.