How Yoga Helps Us Cope With Everyday Stressors
Simple Practices for Daily Stress Relief and Mental Clarity - By Beth Rush
Reading time: 4 minutes
Burnout is a risk in our modern, stressful lives, but the ancient practice of yoga can help.
If you’re like many other Americans, you’re stressed to the gills and in dire need of relief. However, not everyone can afford a spa getaway — or even a few days off work. What holistic techniques can you use on your own to bust tension? How does yoga help with burnout?
This ancient practice is much more than mere stretching. It encompasses the mental and emotional aspects of wellness as well as improving your physical health. Here’s how to use yoga to cope with everyday stressors.
Burnout and Stress
According to the Society for Human Resource Management, 44% of Americans feel burned out from their work and 51% feel used up at the end of each workday. Roughly half the population functions at less than its peak, which creates problems for everyone. Consider the following:
- Stress affects every aspect of health and increases the risk of high blood pressure, heart problems, obesity, diabetes, headaches, arthritis, asthma, depression and anxiety.
- Stress makes you irritable and impulsive and increases your risk of accidents and injury.
- Stress leads to poor decision-making that can ironically lead to even more tense situations.
- Stress strains your closest relationships, cutting you off from a valuable source of support.
Recognizing Signs of Burnout
How do you know when your stress has reached the burnout point? Stay alert to the following signs:
- Feeling sad and depressed or angry and irritable
- Having low energy
- Sleep disturbances, either sleeping too much or too little
- Crying jags
- Overeating or eating too little
Burnout isn’t just an inconvenience. It hinders your productivity and can leave you feeling sick and miserable. Participating in daily relaxation rituals, such as yoga, can help.
How Does Yoga Help in Burnout?
Yoga helps with burnout because it addresses multiple factors that influence your stress levels. For one, it provides gentle exercise that mitigates cortisol levels, which can spiral out of control when under constant pressure, leading to poor mental and physical health.
Secondly, yoga provides time and space for mindfulness. It grounds you in the present and allows you to examine difficult circumstances with an objective eye. It’s tough to think and gain perspective amid a flurry of competing outside stimuli, but your mat provides a quiet place to work through problems and devise solutions.
Finally, yoga can facilitate emotional release. Your nervous system extends throughout your entire body, and many people manifest burnout as discomfort in their hips, back and shoulders. Certain poses that release these areas may also bring a flood of tears — but your mat is a safe place to process your feelings.
4 Ideas for Using Yoga to Cope With Everyday Stressors
The beauty part about yoga is that you don’t need any special equipment. While a mat helps, especially in high-energy styles like vinyasa and power yoga, you can practice many of the moves right on your living room rug or even your mattress. Likewise, while the right studio builds a sense of belonging and camaraderie, YouTube also abounds with free yoga sessions for those who prefer to practice solo.
Incorporating yoga into your everyday life is easy. You don’t need to squeeze in an hour and a half of Ashtanga — unless that’s your yen. However, you can also use yoga to help address burnout with the following four tips.
1. Start Your Day With Intention
If the first thing you do every morning is check into social media, you might start cranking out the stress hormones before you leave bed. Instead, use this time for a brief sunrise yoga routine. Just 10-15 minutes is sufficient to create space for mindfulness and form an intention for your day. Tune into the vibe you want to have throughout your day as you go through your flow, perhaps choosing a single word to represent your desired vibe, such as “serenity.”
2. Take Stress Management Breaks Throughout Your Day
When tension heats up in the workplace, a yoga break is an easy and accessible way to dispel pent-up stress. Use your 15-minute breaks to flow through a few sun salutations. YouTube and many popular yoga apps feature short flows of only five to ten minutes to give you a much-needed breather.
3. Transition From Work to Play
One of the most common modern stressors is feeling constantly connected to work through devices. The problem compounds if you telecommute, creating the feeling that you never leave the office. Use yoga to transition between work and the rest of your day. You can stick with a short flow or do a longer one — whatever it takes to decompress and say “aah.”
4. Ease Yourself Into Dreamland
A few slow, gentle stretches accompanied by deep breathing activate the parasympathetic side of your central nervous system. That’s the half that tells you to rest and digest, and practicing yoga — perhaps right on your mattress — at the end of the day may ease sleep difficulties arising from burnout.
As you relax into each pose, visualize yourself packing up your to-do list and placing it in a safe box for the evening, where it will await you in the morning. Try counting backward as you lie in Savasana, elongating each exhale until slumber overcomes you.
How Yoga Helps in Burnout
Stress is a modern epidemic, and no magic pill will cure it. However, the ancient practice of yoga addresses burnout, preventing it from occurring and helping you cope when life gets overwhelming. Try the simple tips above to integrate daily tension relief into your busy schedule through deep breathing paired with mindful movement.
