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How Hatha Yoga Prevents and Removes Stress
This is an excerpt from Hatha Yoga by Ram Jain & Michèle Hauswirth.
Stress is a reaction to an internal or external stimulus. This stimulus disturbs your physical or mental equilibrium. It leads to an overly activated sympathetic nervous system and floods your body with adrenaline. Meanwhile, your respiration rate, heart rate, muscle tension, and blood pressure increase. This in turn increases stress and anxiety, making it a vicious circle.
Often stress can become such a habitual part of life that you do not even recognize it anymore. And as discussed above, long-term stress will eventually have damaging effects on your health. You may not always be able to control the sources of stress, but you can learn to modify your reactions to it. Through the calm and mindful practice of Hatha Yoga you can re-establish healthy breathing patterns and learn to relax. By learning to relax and consciously experiencing relaxation, you can recognize early signs of stress in your daily life and learn to respond more calmly and consciously. Through this natural growth, you will gain relief from stress and stressful situations.
This is important both for mental health and for physical well-being. When stressed, all bodily functions such as digestion, excretion, sleep, and so on are thrown out of balance. When stress becomes a chronic condition, we can suffer from a wide variety of bodily effects. Indigestion and hyperacidity are just two. In fact, many studies have proven a direct link between stress and most of the common ills, such as diabetes, depression, anxiety, heart disease, high blood pressure, immune system diseases, and more.
One study explains the effects of yoga6 as being brought about by yoga reducing accumulated stress-related wear and tear on the body. This subsequently restores your body’s optimal balance, or homeostasis. Mel Robin, author of the acclaimed Physiological Handbook for Teachers of Yogasana,7 agrees. He believes that the practice of yoga can increase control of the vagus nerve—which increases integration in the shifts between the parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous systems. This integration lessens the effect of stress on your body and mind. Certain yoga asanas, especially inverted ones, or any when the forehead rests on the floor, may shift the autonomic nervous system toward parasympathetic dominance, through stimulation of the vagus nerve.
Other studies have shown that yoga practices correct under-activity of the parasympathetic nervous and GABA systems (in part through stimulation of the vagus nerve) in addition to reducing accumulated stress-related wear and tear. GABA is a major neurotransmitter in the mammalian central nervous system and plays the principal role in reducing neuronal excitability throughout the nervous system. Many reports have linked stress and depression to low GABA levels. Scientists have measured GABA levels of yoga practitioners both before and after an hour-long yoga session focused on Hatha Yoga and related breathing. There were no extensive periods of meditation or pranayama. The study guidelines demanded at least 55 minutes of common yoga postures and exercises, such as inversions and backbends, twists and Sun Salutations. The scientists compared 8 yoga practitioners to a control group of 11 individuals who did no yoga but instead read magazines.
The results, published in 2007, were stunning. They showed that the brains of yoga practitioners displayed an average GABA rise of 27 percent. By contrast, the comparison group experienced not the slightest change. A follow-up study looked at subjects with no prior knowledge of yoga. They learned the Iyengar style from scratch and practiced it for three months. The findings, published in 2010, showed that even beginning yogis experienced major rises in the neurotransmitter, along with improved mood and less anxiety. The average GABA rise was less than in the previous study—13 percent versus 27 percent—about half as much. Still, the new yogis did better than the walkers (the control group).
This suggests that the practice of asanas and related breathing is more efficient in reducing stress and its long-term effects than exercise (moderate or vigorous) or any other leisure activity. The main influencs of yoga asana practice on stress are, as shown above, the activation of the rest-and-relax mode (the parasympathetic nervous system) and the direct increase of GABA neurotransmitters in the brain.
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