If you have been following me along this journey, you’ll know that I love yoga more than anything and talk about it whenever I can. It’s because yoga has changed my life and will continue to change my life.
What Is Yoga?
Yoga is a practice that originated in ancient India around 400 C.E. It combines physical, mental, and emotional practices through stretches/poses, breathing techniques, and meditation. The word “yoga” comes from the Sanskrit root, yuj, which means “to unite.” And it does just that– unites your mind, body, and spirit.
Yoga focuses on bringing the mind, body, and breath together to alter energy and shift consciousness. It is a form of liberation from suffering. It is a tool for many mental and physical conditions.
Types Of Yoga
- Restorative: This style focuses on relaxation and freeing your mind.
- Yin: This style is meditative and slow-paced, focusing on postures held for longer periods of time.
- Bikram: A style performed in a sauna-like room.
- Kundalini: Yoga that focuses on releasing the kundalini energy from your spine.
- Vinyasa: The most athletic style that coordinates movements with breath.
- Kripalu: This practice is all about learning, knowing, and accepting from the body.
- Ashtanga: This style focuses on ancient yoga practices and involves more physically demanding postures.
These are just some types of yoga. Because it is practiced by millions of people, there are always new practices and sequences being developed or changed.
My favorite types of yoga are restorative and yin. I do practice yoga for multiple reasons, but ultimately, it is my biggest form of release. For this reason, I enjoy more gentle and opening postures to release stress, emotions, and negative thoughts.
Benefits Of Yoga
Yoga has so many benefits, ranging from physical, mental, and spiritual.
- Reduces cortisol levels
- Reduces stress, anxiety, and depression
- Increases strength and flexibility
- Slows the aging process
- Lowers heart rate
- Increases your sense of well-being
- Helps with spiritual growth and expanding consciousness
- Improves many medical conditions associated with stress and inflammation
- Improves sleep
- Supports heart health
- Promotes healthier breathing
- Relieves tension from body/releases stuck and negative energy
- Increases mindfulness and self-compassion
- Enhances mood
Getting into a steady daily practice can improve your overall well-being. All it takes is 10 minutes a day to center yourself and bring yourself back to the present moment. A lot of the time, we’re usually stuck in the past or worrying about the future. Yoga is a great way to ground yourself.
My Journey With Yoga
As you all know, I’ve struggled with anxiety, stress, and depression for most of my life. It all started at a younger age, and I just never felt like I could get ahead of it all. Just always felt like I was drowning in it. And then, it just got worse as I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disorder.
It wasn’t until I was going through the worst flare-up of my life for 3 months straight, that I decided to finally take a shot at doing some yoga to see what would happen. When I say the worst flare-up, I mean I could barely walk down the street to the mailbox because I couldn’t get the strength to actually get up. I lost 20 pounds and couldn’t do anything all day except lay and go to the bathroom. I couldn’t even lay down on my left side or move my body in the left direction because I was experiencing so much pain.
Anyways, I was tired of going through it and nothing was helping or making it better. So, I found a video on YouTube that was a yoga sequence made specifically for Ulcerative Colitis and Crohn’s and took a shot at it. I’ve never cried that much during a sequence, ever. I was finally able to move my left side without dealing with the worst pain. I slowly, but surely, got through the sequence and kept crying for a while after.
So, I kept doing that same sequence every day. I didn’t miss a single day. I kept doing it until it became easier for me. Sure enough, there were tears every time. I realized that I was crying every time because I had so much tension, stress, anxiety, pain, anger, and sadness built up inside of me. I was holding it all in my body, and that was making it impossible for my body to feel safe and heal itself.
It wasn’t long after that, that I finally started feeling better. I was releasing everything that was built up in me, and I was taking the time every day to give myself the space to let it all go. I’m sure that there were a few things helping me reduce the flare-up, but I know yoga was what opened that portal to healing.
Yoga Is My Routine
Yoga is one of the main activities in my daily routine. I am not an advanced yogi. I can’t bend in every direction and I’m not that flexible. But I do it anyways. The point is it doesn’t have to perfect for you to start adding it into your routine.
Yoga has opened up a portal to my healing. It’s opened up a consistent line of communication with my mind, body, heart, and soul. It has decreased my stress, anxiety, and depression. It has helped me release so much tension that I’ve been holding in my body for years. Yoga has helped me form a better relationship with myself. It has increased my self-compassion, self-love, and confidence. It has made me more aware of what my body wants and has helped me become more patient with myself and others.
I might sound dramatic when I say this and I don’t really care, but yoga is my lifeline. It has saved me time and time again. It’s saved me from pain, sorrow, grief, and anxiety. I never feel better than when I’m on my mat, opening my heart to the beauties of this practice.
Recommended Videos
Here are some recommended videos from YouTube that I usually practice. All of these channels have many different videos for many different needs. Search through and find something that works best for you.
These are just a few of my favorite yoga channels to follow, but there are so many different ones! Find what works best for you and go from there. Don’t force yourself to do sequences you don’t like or follow instructors that don’t make you feel comfortable and relaxed.
Start Off Slow
If there’s anything I want you to take from this post, it’s that yoga is life changing and will bring you out of whatever it is you’re going through. You don’t need to be flexible, strong, athletic. You just need to show up for yourself. There’s no need to push yourself too much, and there’s no need to force anything. The hardest part is showing up to the mat. Allow yourself to open up and feel everything on the mat.
Yoga is a forever practice, where you will always be learning something new about yourself, your body, and your practice. 1 Whatever it is you’re looking for, yoga can help you find it.
If you have any questions about my experience with yoga, don’t hesitate to ask! Leave a comment below telling me your thoughts about yoga or sharing your experience with it!
- All information was researched, and some main sources are:
Types Of Yoga: A Guide To 11 Different Styles | mindbodygreen
What is Yoga? – Definition from Yogapedia
Yoga: Methods, types, philosophy, and risks (medicalnewstoday.com)
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