Yoga is a well-rounded activity that helps your body in a lot of ways. It tones, gives you flexibility, strengthens the core and helps in weight loss. It also reduces stress, keeps your centre intact and helps release anxiety-causing toxins from time to time.
Here are eight helpful yoga asanas you can practice on your own to reduce the boatload of stress you carry with you every day.
Sukhasana, as the name suggests, is a peaceful asana that helps the body feel way grounded. It’s literary the easiest and is known to relieve physical and mental exhaustion—it opens up the spine {the back or the spine stores all our emotional needs and wants} and the hips.
It helps let go of the negatives you may have gathered from a long day and reduces anxiety. Sit up straight for 60 minutes in it.
This pose acts like a powerful stress buster! It is usually followed by the cow pose, which falls in to a nice Vinyasa flow. It massages the back and the belly organs along with stimulating the digestive tract and spinal fluids.
Place your wrists directly under the shoulders and your knees under your hip for that perfect alignment.
The cat pose is followed by the cow pose; it is a good way to warm up the spine. Just like the cat pose, this one also helps a great deal in relieving stress. It massages the belly organs and stimulates the kidney and adrenal glands, which help keep you emotionally sound.
Place your wrists right under your shoulder, knees under your hips and stick that beaut bum out!
The one place that affects us most when we’re stressed is the adrenal glands as a lot of pressure is put on them due to stress. One way to ease the pressure is to get into a comfortable child pose and stay there for a few minutes. Think of it as a giant, soothing well-deserving hug you’re giving yourself at the end of a long day.
Ladies if you’re on your period and hate them cramps, this is the pose to get into to ease the pain.
The downward dog is a beautiful pose you can get into every time you feel down and out. It’s a good way to reduce fatigue and tiredness. For women, it helps in reducing the chances of bone diseases like osteoporosis, and is a great way to rejuvenate the body as it regulates blood flow.
Get down on your feet and hands and keep that back straight while forming the perfect V formation. Stay there for 30 seconds to a minute.
This is one of the balancing poses out of the many balancing series. Focusing on one point and balancing your body is a great stress management tool. It’s also a good asana to free up tightness on your hips, where most of the emotional crappiness accumulates!
Bring your right thigh behind the left calf and bend your knees while you intertwine your arms and make your palms meet {trust us, it’s not as complicated as it sounds}.
For more clarity you can find the instructions on YouTube.
This pose is when your body tells you to let go and relax. It’s like your body is afloat! It’s great pose that helps you open your groin, inner thighs and hips {all places where tension and stress is accumulated} and is a good pose to end your practice with.
Lie down and make the soles of the feet come together and meet {like a namaste with your feet}. Your arms can either be on your heart and belly or left lose and free on the sides, along the body.
This is a good spinal twist that calms the brain and gently helps ease depression, anxiety, fatigue, headaches, menstrual discomfort and insomnia.
Sit up with your legs straight. Bend down and try and touch your feet with your hands and go as far as your body takes you. You can also try this pose by bending your torso sideways and extending the outer arm over your head.
Don’t forget to keep breathing through these poses as each breath helps you get in to the pose better and hence work wonders!
