Yoga: A means to a healthy lifestyle
I have been participating and working in the wellness industry for decades and there is one thing I can say for sure—the key to a healthy lifestyle is developing a yoga practice.
I have done marathons, triathlons, weight training, detox diets, meditation…you name it, and I am here to say that yoga encompasses all that you need. Develop a practice and it will have a lasting effect on your wellness.
For many of you, when I say a yoga practice, you picture in your mind gravity-defying poses in which you twist yourself into a pretzel while chanting “Om.” Forget that. That visible face of modern yoga, fed by social-media showboats, is what scares beginners, but to most of us practicing yogis that is not what yoga is all about.
Fine, yoga, you may say, but what about all those other aspects of a full wellness program… nutrition, sleep, exercise, healthy relationships, and job satisfaction? Well, if you dive deeper into what yoga really is, the entire practice is a philosophy on how to live your life and develop inner wisdom.
A disciplined yoga practice inherently touches on all eight key aspects of wellness: Physical, Emotional, Spiritual, Social, Occupational, Financial, Environmental and Intellectual. In this two-part post, I will explore in detail how yoga enhances each aspect of wellness.
Physical
Often what comes to mind when we think of doing yoga are postures or asanas. Yoga is such an intelligent form of exercise; you don’t need equipment and it involves using your whole body. Plus, it can be modified for all ages and abilities (defying gravity is optional).
You build strength and flexibility. You learn new movement patterns and break old ones, all while connecting movements with the breath. And that breath is crucial, not only because it has a profound effect on your nervous system, but because it makes the experience a mindful activity.
The best part of yoga is that it is not competitive. And the better part is that it is not even comparable. Yoga works on multiple systems of the body. Studies show with chronic stress, the sympathetic nervous system is in overdrive, which can lead to inflammation and increased blood pressure. There is a huge body of literature that says psychosocial stressors such as work and marital stress, as well as anxiety and depression, are associated with increased risk for cardiovascular disease. Some studies suggest yoga practice may be good for heart health, from reducing blood pressure and cholesterol to lowering stress and body mass index. Yoga is also one of the more effective tools for helping soothe lower back pain. Yoga practice helps to stretch and strengthen muscles that support the back and spine.
Through yoga asana practice, one can truly learn to develop deep self-awareness. By tuning into the body in a mindful, focused way, you develop a “felt sense,” which does not come in the form of thoughts or words but as a bodily feeling. The philosopher and psychologist Eugene Gendlin, who coined the term “felt sense,” described it as “the raw, directly experiencing the body's feeling of a situation or memory before being clarified with words.” This is powerful. A felt sense is not a mental experience but a physical one, a bodily feeling. Yoga asana is a daily tool for tuning into our experience and developing a deep sense of self-awareness. This is the basis of emotional intelligence.
Emotional
This leads us right into why yoga is called a mind-body practice. We use the mind to study the body and the body to study the mind. Since emotions are a physiological response to something in our external or internal environments, by tuning into the body we can tune into our emotional landscape. Yoga is a way into our physical and mental experience. Whatever is happening in the mind easily influences our body and shows up in our posture.
Habits of the mind are everywhere in physical movement. As I stated earlier, the psychosocial stressors of life become ingrained in our tissues. So, if we change how we hold the body we can then affect the inner environment of the mind.
The purpose of yoga is to calm the craziness in our minds. The second sutra from the Yoga Sutra’s of Patanjali, Yoga citta vritta nirodaha. translates as “Yoga is the stilling of the changing states of mind.” Thus, yoga is all about understanding and calming the contents of the mind.
Having good emotional wellness is about the ability to handle the rollercoaster of life. Yoga gives us some specific instructions for going past the mind. The yoga sutras explain extensively how the breath is intimately connected to the mind. If we change the way we breathe, we can affect the nervous system and the mind.
Different emotions are associated with different forms of breathing. By changing how we breathe we can change how we feel. Think about how you breathe when you are anxious or angry versus filled with joy and laughter. When you inhale, the heart rate speeds up, when you exhale it slows down. When you lengthen your exhales, you signal the vagus nerve, which in turn triggers the parasympathetic nervous system, which is responsible for the “rest & digest” responses in the body (in contrast to the sympathetic nervous system’s “fight or flight” reactions). Triggering your parasympathetic nervous system helps you to calm down, feel better, and get back to thinking like a rational human. So merely learning to slow the breath and double the length of the exhale in a moment of distress, will slow the system down, allow you to pause, and will have a profound effect on how you feel and respond. Yoga practice is chock full of breath practices that have a profound energetic effect on the entire physical mental system.
This combination of asana and breath practice now makes us fit for meditation. Meditation refers to a family of mental training practices that are designed to familiarize the practitioner with one’s mind. In the same way that you train the body through exercise, meditation is a way of training the mind. We know from the science of neuroplasticity that what we think and do and pay attention to changes the structure and function of the brain. So, what we cultivate in meditation practice, whether it be focused attention, compassion, or gratitude, helps to build new ways of being or patterns. This ultimately changes how we show up in life and our wellness.
Spiritual
Originally the context of yoga was spiritual development practices to train the body and mind in order to self-observe and become aware of one’s own nature. The purposes of yoga were to cultivate discernment, awareness, self-regulation, and higher consciousness in the individual. It is not dogmatic religion but an embodied spiritual practice.
BKS Lyengar says: “The yogi knows that the physical body is not only the temple for our soul but means by which we embark on the inward journey to the core. Only by first attending to the physical body can we hope to accomplish anything in our spiritual lives.”
Specific asanas can induce a particular state of mind or spiritual quality. Mountain pose gives us a sense of grounding and strength. In tree pose, we learn balance and the ability to be flexible in various weather. Breath and meditation practice invokes a sacred pause that takes us deeper into our true nature.
However, we never want to confuse the techniques of yoga with the experience of yoga. The authentic practice of yoga is an unremitting attention to the present experience. Moreover, the foundation of a spiritual path of yoga is ethics. Even if you do not know the spiritual path you are on, you know when you are off it. The great thing about the yogic path, or any path for that matter, is that others before us have traveled on it. There are signs and instructions that help orient us on the journey. Such a journey is one that challenges our habitual ways of comfort.
Patanjali lays out an eight-limbed path, which by practicing, reduces the impurities of the mind and allows the light of wisdom to shine through, culminating in discriminative discernment. The first two limbs outline the ethical foundation of the path: Yama (right living or moral disciplines) and Niyama (observance). The Yamas consist of non-violence, truthfulness, non-stealing, continence, and non-greed. The Niyamas consist of purity, contentment, accepting but not causing pain, study of spiritual books, and devotion to a higher power. These ethical principles are a set of suggestions for how to live and go right to the heart of our actions of body, speech, and mind. They ask us to approach life and ourselves with an attitude of kindness and nonviolence, and to create space for whatever we think and feel. The result is spiritual wellness and a focusing on your inner world. The universal themes such as love, kindness, and compassion for others are inherent in the practice, as well.
Social
Through yoga practice, you now have a greater sense of self-awareness. You have learned to be in the present moment and see the world through a more compassionate lens. This then enables you to connect with others more authentically. In fact, the insula, the same part of the brain responsible for self-awareness, is also what allows us to understand the emotions and feelings of others. Greater self-awareness develops empathy. Patanjali, in one sutra, gives the most concise yet powerful relationship advice. He says, “By cultivating an attitude of friendship toward those who are happy, compassion toward those in distress, joy toward those who are virtuous, and equanimity toward those who are non-virtuous, lucidity arises in the mind.” In a sense, this is the attitude that you should cultivate. Without it, one’s own mind would be disturbed.
Moreover, the first of the eight-fold path, Yamas, are concerned with how we interact with others and ways we should approach relations. The first, Ahimsa or non-violence, is the root of them all, and means we must do the least amount of harm in thought, word, and deed. This sets us up for practicing love, kindness, gratitude, and compassion. The second of Satya or truthfulness, goes beyond not telling lies; it is understanding truth. In fact, the yoga tradition of Satsang is a Sanskrit term derived from two roots: sat meaning "true’' and sangha meaning community, company, or association. It refers to the act of gathering with like-minded, uplifting people, especially those on a spiritual path, but the term is generally used to highlight the importance of community. The third Asteya, non-stealing, goes beyond theft of material goods; it includes stealing time, energy, or from the environment. Brahmacharya, often referred to as sexual energy, means we must be mindful of how that energy is used. The last, Aparigraha, is non-greed or non-attachment. This means taking only what we need and what serves us in the moment and not clinging or wanting more than what is necessary.
Social wellness means having strong social relationships that can result in more happiness, better health, and even a longer life. The practice of yoga lays the foundation for social and ethical well-being.