By Denise Everheart

If you’re experiencing too much anxiety, yoga can help! Yoga postures, breathing exercises, and meditation all help melt away anxiety. Read on…

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An epidemic of anxiety is spreading through our country like wildfire. About 40 million U.S. adults suffer from regular anxiety (that’s around 18 percent of Americans age 18 and over), and nearly seven million suffer from generalized anxiety disorder. Sadly, these numbers are only increasing every year.

When stress and anxiety reach a debilitating point, something has to be done to prevent an all-out nervous system meltdown. The good news is that more than ever, healthcare providers are now recommending stress-management techniques for overcoming anxiety. This is where yoga for anxiety can help. 

Check out our Top Scientific Benefits of Yoga infographic:

A holistic approach using yoga for anxiety relief

The world of yoga includes asanas (body postures), pranayamas (breathing techniques), meditation, and ancient yoga philosophy. These have helped many people manage stress and anxiety, improve their mental health, and gain resilience. 

Yoga is synonymous with peace of mind, relaxation, and stress reduction. 

Regular yoga practice can help you stay calm and relaxed in daily life and give you the strength to face events as they come without feeling anxious.

Anxiety symptoms nobody wants

When we’re anxious, our adrenal glands release adrenaline, putting the body into “fight or flight” mode. This is also known as sympathetic nervous system overload. When this happens, the heartbeat quickens, the muscles tense, and the body sweats. 

If anxiety persists, the adrenal glands become fatigued, resulting in stress overload, digestive issues, depression, insomnia, and even a weakened immune system. This type of stress response, especially if repetitive, can lead to chronic anxiety and disease.

What we want to happen is for our parasympathetic nervous system to engage so we can “rest and digest.” In this calm state of well-being, we are able to handle whatever life throws at us.

What to do if you are experiencing anxiety

The following yoga techniques can help calm an anxious mind, improve your mental health, and prepare you to face future stressful situations.

Yoga breathing exercises to relieve anxiety

Practicing yoga breathing exercises is a powerful way to reduce anxiety and stress. Within a matter of seconds, you can start to feel relief. In fact, Vogue declares: “Breathing is the New Yoga!

Try any of the following breathing exercises for about three to five minutes, and you will see a noticeable increase in relaxation and peace of mind.

Deep yogic breath: Bring one hand to the belly and place the other hand on the chest. Take a deep breath in through the nose, allowing the belly to rise as you breathe in. The hand on your chest should not move. Exhale slowly, letting the belly return to normal. Continue this belly breathing for a few minutes.

Alternate nostril breathing: To practice this, sit with your spine straight, but relaxed, with eyes closed. Place your right thumb on your right nostril, forefinger, and middle finger between the eyebrows and ring finger on the left nostril. Gently close your right nostril. Breathe out from the left nostril and in through the left nostril. Close the left nostril, open the right nostril, and breathe out from the right. Now breathe in from the right, close the right, open the left nostril, and breathe out from the left. Continue this for five minutes. Make sure that your breaths are easy and natural.

Straw breath: Enjoy this video demonstrating how to do straw breathing:

Try this simple but very effective yoga mudra (hand gesture)

Mudras are simple hand positions that affect the flow of energy in specific parts of the body, and the health of our emotions. Chin mudra is often depicted in eastern artwork featuring saints in deep meditation. This hand position benefits all the organs in the torso, and has a calming effect on the mind and emotions.

Chin mudra instructions

Take a comfortable seat, close your eyes, and breathe slowly.  Join the tips of the index finger and thumb (lightly) and keep the other three fingers outstretched, relaxed, and joined. Continue with slow and gentle breaths for three to five minutes. 

Use guided meditation to help manage anxiety

You can easily reduce stress and anxiety with the help of guided meditation. Even severe anxiety can often be controlled with this type of meditation. 

Try out this guided meditation to overcome fear and anxiety, led by world-renowned meditation master, Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. 

What you can do to prevent anxiety symptoms

When it comes to anxiety, prevention is even better than treatment. Here are some effective ways to keep anxiety at bay.

Hatha yoga poses for anxiety 

Hatha yoga can be considered an umbrella term for many of the common forms of yoga taught in the West today. The following yoga sequence can help you release tension and achieve a happy and healthy mind and body. You can find all of these yoga postures here. Remember to take deep breaths with each pose!

• Gentle neck rotations  
• Cat pose
• Cow pose       
• Child's pose
• Downward facing dog 
• Standing forward bend 
• Tree pose 
• Butterfly pose
• One-legged seated forward bend 
• Two-legged seated forward bend 
• Bridge pose 
• Shoulderstand 
• Camel pose
• Fish pose 
• Bow pose
• Corpse pose 

At the end of the yoga practice, lie down in a corpse pose for a guided relaxation technique called Yoga Nidra. This will give your mind and body complete relaxation. 

Meditate and relax like a yogi (or yogini)

The best way to get rid of anxiety is to catch it early before it becomes a serious issue. Here, meditation can be very helpful both as a preventative and a curative practice. 

Two of the most researched meditation techniques for anxiety are mantra-based and breath-based meditation. 

Sahaj Samadhi Meditation is a great example of a mantra-based technique. And SKY Breath Meditation is one of the most effective breath-based meditation techniques out there, especially when it comes to anxiety and depression. SKY significantly decreases both clinical and non-clinical anxiety and depression.

Learn SKY on the Art of Living Part 1 course. Register on our meditation app.

Hope you enjoyed this article on yoga for anxiety!