Happy Mental Health Awareness Month!
Perks Of Lifestyle Changes
There are so many substances you can take to help increase your diet and health, a great place to find these can be NHC.com which has multiple natural brands to help boost your immune system to promote healthy living. But, if you aren’t also making changes to your everyday lifestyle, you won’t see the best results you could possibly obtain. Depression and anxiety are some of the most popular forms of mental health that quickly decrease a person’s mood and cause them to lose grip on reality and the beauty of life. This then can be a dangerous pit to fall into, and even bigger struggle to climb out of. If you or someone you know struggles with these disorders, you may try this technique as a positive outlet to relieve stress, reduce anxiety and depression, and bring a new meaning of life into your world.
what really is yoga?
Yoga has been proven over and over as being an outlet to help human beings reduce the influence of stress on the body, aid in joint and muscle pain, boost energy levels, and act as a similar form of meditation and relaxation with yoga’s self-soothing remedy. Healthline.com does a great job of explaining multiple ways yoga can benefit your health by incorporating it into your lifestyle. This website mentions the “controlled, focused movements also help strengthen the body-mind connection”.
Back in my first year of college, I was required to participate in a PAC class. I chose yoga. I did the lower paced class hoping it would be a chance to slow down my day and help relieve any stress I had – boy was I right! The class not only implemented ways to help strengthen my core and increase my flexibility but continued to provide me an outlet of relaxation in an environment tailored to how slow or fast I was able to go.
Outside of school, I googled places offering yoga near me and found a studio that offered hot yoga. I decided why not and threw up the 20 bucks. It ended up being such a fantastic experience! Hot yoga is one of the MANY options yoga offers. There are tons of different branches of yoga from goat yoga to even naked yoga! It’s crazy!
Let’s chat: Hot Yoga
There are so many benefits to hot yoga. Don’t believe me? Webmd.com does great on answering a lot of questions and concerns people may have. In hot yoga, the temperature in the room increases anywhere between 90 and 98 degrees. This is why hydration before attending is CRUCIAL. If you aren’t used to the room being so hot, you can always get to the studio a few minutes ahead of time to lie still in the heat and help your body adjust before beginning the movements.
One thing to note about yoga is that this is not an embarrassing environment. I always felt embarrassed and insecure attending yoga in college and until I went to hot yoga, I realized it truly an environment to help you become a better you. Everyone in the room was so inviting and ages ranged from all over the place. Since I had no idea what poses were what, the lady next to me constantly mentored me through showing me each pose as it was called out. Sometimes, the poses were too hard, or I was simply just too tired due to being out of shape and HOT. That was perfectly ok. I could lie down or sit or position myself in child’s pose at any point or time until I was ready to continue. I kept a towel and water jug next to me, and overall had a great time!
Does yoga help get you in shape?
If you don’t want to take it from me, check out NIH.gov. A study was conducted and Catherine Woodyard, Ph.D., Sociology and Anthropologie, talks about the benefits yoga has along with the study’s results. The article claims “results from this study show that yogic practices enhance muscular strength and body flexibility, promote and improve respiratory and cardiovascular function, promote recovery from and treatment of addiction, reduce stress, anxiety, depression, and chronic pain, improve sleep patterns, and enhance overall well-being and quality of life”. Does that not sound awesome? Yoga acts as a workout ALONG with benefitting your overall wellbeing in numerous ways.
Getting started
Find a yoga studio near you and figure out which types of yoga it offers. I would encourage you to check it out and look into it. The effects could be life-changing and pairing a healthy lifestyle to a healthy immune system will help you kick your mental health disorders in the butt!
A Happy You Is A Healthy You!
