Stress and Yoga

Overview
Technological advances, ambition and competitive pressures have expanded the business day. Leisure time has shrunk. Cellular phones have made us accessible 24x7. Laptop computers bring work back home. We throw ourselves from one endeavor to another, believing that speed and movement is all there is in life. The “rat race” has created so much unnecessary tension from within and around us. Because of this fast life, we are neglecting our body and the mind. The body and mind are beginning to pull each other in opposite directions, dissipating our energy. We do not know how to recharge our batteries of energy. While there has always been stress in the getting and spending of life, today we suffer from so much culturally and personally created stress.

Different types of stress
Stressors can be defined as short-term (acute) or long-term (chronic).

Acute Stress: Acute stress evokes physical and emotional responses that activate the body and mind to deal with an immediate threat, commonly known as the fight or flight response. The threat can be any situation that is experienced, even subconsciously or falsely, as a danger. Under most circumstances, once the acute threat has passed, the response becomes inactivated and levels of stress hormones return to normal, a condition called the relaxation response. Common acute stressors include: noise, crowding, isolation, hunger, danger, infection, and imagining a threat or remembering a dangerous event.

Chronic Stress: Frequently, however, modern life poses on-going stressful situations that are not short-lived and the urge to act (to fight or to flee) must be suppressed. Long-term stress evokes similar responses, usually at a lower intensity, but keeps repeating them day after day without respite. When they repeat too often for too long, the life-saving responses that are so helpful in the short run can actually become life-threatening. Stress, then, becomes chronic. Stress hormones remain in the bloodstream for quite a long time. Common chronic stressors include: long working hours, on-going highly pressured work, office politics and conflicts, persistent financial worries and excessive time spent away from home and family.

Manifestation and ramifications of stress
Chronic stress can lead to physical, mental and emotional imbalances.
Stress accumulates in the body, producing psychosomatic ailments. Suppression of digestion can contribute to gastrointestinal problems, and promotion of high glucose levels in the blood may contribute to diabetes.

Constricted blood vessels, a pounding heart, and rapid clotting can eventually lead to high blood pressure, heart disease, or stroke. Suppression of inflammation can also suppress the immune system, making us more susceptible to infection and possibly even cancer. Chronic stress can also lead to infertility, poor healing capability, and exhaustion.

Stress has significant effects on the brain, particularly on memory. The typical victim of severe stress suffers loss of concentration at work and at home and may become inefficient and accident-prone.

Emotional stresses imprint themselves on the physical, organic and neurological bodies.

Can we eliminate stress?
Stress is an unavoidable consequence of life. We cannot eliminate stress and tension from our lives. However, just as distress can cause disease, it seems plausible that there are good stresses that promote wellness. Stress triggers very different biological responses and this level differs for each of us. What matters ultimately is how stress affects our nervous system. Positive stress is a measured response to Nature’s challenges. It is constructive and does not harm the nerves. But when it is destructive, it is negative stress, which is indeed harmful. Our aim is to be able to deal with negative stress as and when it arises, and not to imprint and accumulate it in the body’s various systems, including both conscious and unconscious memory.

How to deal with stress?
The key to overcoming stress is to calm and strengthen the nervous system. Stress is related to our very nerves and cells. One must learn how to calm these cells and cool them down when they overheat with anxious and distracting thoughts. Disruptive patterns of energy that we call stress need to be pacified and eliminated from the body.

How yoga can help to deal with stress?
One of the most efficacious tools for dealing with stress is yoga. It directly counteracts both the physiological and psychological components of stress. The practice of yoga not only de-stress you, but energize and invigorate the nerves and the mind in order to handle the stress that comes from the caprices of life. As you practice being more aware and mindful, you gain a sense of self-control, equanimity, and peace. This quest for inner peace and contentment through yoga is the solution to the accumulation of stress that we experience in our lives.

Two principal practices, yogasana and pranayama, help enormously with stress, but yoga offers a wider solution to stress. Perhaps most important of all, the teachings of yoga philosophy can help you realize that most of the things that upset you just aren't worth getting stressed about.

Mind, body and yoga asanas
Psychological studies show that your mind and your body are strongly linked. As your mental health declines, your physical health can wear down, and if your physical health declines, it can make you feel mentally down.

The body and mind are in a state of constant interaction. Yogic science does not demarcate where the body ends and the mind begins, but approaches both as a single, integrated entity. Yoga asanas integrate the body, the mind, the intelligence and, finally, the self. The impact of asanas is never purely physical. Asanas, if correctly practised, bridge the divide between the physical and mental spheres.

Asanas consist of various physical postures, which are designed to release tension, improve flexibility and maximize the flow of vital energy. The purpose of the asanas is to create a flow of positive energy so that our concentration is directed within ourselves and the mind is able to perceive the effects of our purposive action. In this way, the stress that saturates the brain is diffused throughout the rest of the body, so the brain is rested and released from strain and the body releases its stress and strain through movement. The resultant rhythmic energy flow and awareness leads to a mental state of pure joy (ananda). Physical postures, therefore, end up affecting the various interrelated channels (nadis) of the mind-body complex. And ultimately the performance of a perfect yogasana leads to the absolute intellectual absorption of the mind on a single task (dharana), which in turn leads to the fusion of the individual spirit with the Divine Self (dhyana).

Benefits of asanas
The regular practise of asanas has a beneficial impact on the whole body. Asanas not only tone the muscles, tissues, ligaments, joints, and nerves, but also maintain the smooth functioning and health of all the body's systems. Asanas balance the respiratory, circulatory, nervous, hormonal, digestive, excretory, and reproductive systems perfectly. The equilibrium in the body then brings mental peace and enhances intellectual clarity.

Regular practice helps to keep our body fit, controls cholesterol level, reduces weight, normalizes blood pressure and improves heart performance. Physical fitness thus achieved leads to reduction of physical stress and greater vitality. Asanas harmonize our pranic ability and mental energy flow by clearing any blockages in the subtle body leading to mental equilibrium and calmness. They make the mind strong thus enabling our human body to suffer pain and unhappiness stoically and with fortitude.

What about Pranayama?
Often called the father of yoga, sage Patanjali codified his thoughts and knowledge of yoga in The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali more than 2000 years ago. In this work, Patanjali compiled 195 sutras or concise aphorisms that are essentially an ethical blueprint for living a moral life and incorporating the science of yoga into your life. These aphorisms outline the fundamental tenet of yoga, known as the eight limbs or astanga.

The eight limbs or steps are yama, niyama, asana, pranayama, pratyahara, dharana, dhyana, and samadhi. These are sequential stages in an individual's journey through yoga. Each step must be understood and followed to attain the ultimate goal, that of emancipation of the self.

As per the original texts, one should begin pranayama only when one has perfected asana. Once the body is under control, the spine firm, and nerves calm, then one can start pranayama. Pranayama is not deep breathing. Prana is energy, and ayama is the storing and distribution of that energy. Ayama has three aspects of movements: vertical extension, horizontal extension, and cyclical extension.

Pranayama is a complex process comprising inhalation, exhalation and retention. Years of dedicated practise of asanas makes one ready for pranayama. You cannot achieve pranayama just because you want to - you have to be ready for it.

P.S. I have found Iyengar style of yoga to be the most efficacious. More info here http://www.bksiyengar.com/.

P.S. However, please be aware of one fact, that there is no magic pill. It takes a lot of discipline, and perseverance to follow Iyengar yoga. Iyengar yoga is not any crash course that you can complete in 7-days, or 3-months, or 1-year, but a journey and a way of life. If you are looking for quick-fixes, and pain-free results, it is not for you.

P.S. Some of the excerpts have been collated from various Guruji's books. Hope it is not construed as plagiarism. The sole intention is to convey how efficacious yoga is to deal with stress.