Yoga’s Medical Recognition as a treatment for anxiety

In the fast-paced and uncertain world of modern society, stress and anxiety can often rise to debilitating levels. Chronic and unmanaged stress can impact our quality of life, and is responsible for an increase in health issues and disorders that span the globe. With the rise of COVID-19 that has only exacerbated matters. Negative emotions are not only traumatic but they also affect our immune system. Managing these emotions can be draining but is certainly doable.

Yoga as a treatment for the mind and body:

If anxiety increases it can start to interfere with your everyday activities and general well-being and can bring on anxiety disorders such as –GAD ( generalised anxiety disorder,) which keeps you in a state of exaggerated worry and the inability to relax. However a lot of the symptoms related to anxiety are physical, such as muscle tension, sweating and insomnia which is caused by the “fight” or “fight stress” response which prepares the body as if there is a real threat on the horizon.

Conventional medical treatments don’t always address the underlying causes of anxiety. Given that anxiety also appears in physical symptoms, it stands to reason that if an anxiety treatment is to be successful it should treat both the mind and body. This is where yoga comes in, it can provide you the strengthening tools which are needed for emotional regulation.

Feelings of anxiety can quickly become overwhelming, this leads to automatic reactivity with no interval for a response. By practicing yoga the patterns responsible for this reactivity behaviour can be broken through, the meditation component of yoga works on improving self-regulation and the attention networks in your brain. The physical component of yoga works on tackling the anxiety symptoms in the body, whilst also having an impact on the mind-body connection.

Overall having a degree of control over our emotional state and how we respond to stressful events is key to both our mental and physical well-being. The mind-body practice of yoga make it a powerful tool to have to help you become in a state of piece within you and your environment.

 Scientific Community Evidence:

Yoga’s positive impact on the world of anxiety and anxiety disorders has been supported by a growing body of research. Recently published studies have concluded that yoga can be a safe and effective intervention for those individuals who have an anxiety disorder or elevated levels of anxiety, this is a welcome development especially in the light of the fact that anxiety disorders are on the increase in younger people.

 Start practicing at home:

Whilst the research is continuing to make a case to the medical establishment for yoga to be seen as a treatment strategy, there is nothing stopping you from beginning the practice yourself.  No specialist equipment is required –though a yoga mat is useful- from starting the practice in your living room. The best way to start this practice is to join one of Dragonfly Yoga’s upcoming classes, click here to view the timetable for available classes, and start to awaken your potential today!

Meditation for Building Trust

“As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.”

-- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Trust.

A word that many of us wrestle with at least once in our lifetimes, we often see trust as the key to our happiness. Having loved ones we trust makes us feel safe and gives us a sense of belonging that cannot be replaced by any material thing - alarm systems or membership cards. Betrayal can be one of the most challenging experiences that a person has. As a result of these betrayals - no matter how big or small - many of us experience times where we lack trust in others, sometimes dismissively labelled by others as “trust issues”, which can have a damaging impact on our relationships and wellbeing, lead to depression and anxiety, and even affect the way we see ourselves.

So what is the secret to building healthy trust?

There is no one-click fix and neither is there a one-size-fits-all approach: different methods of building trust work for different individuals. By meditating regularly, though, we can develop the self-awareness to nurture a healthy attitude towards trust - starting with our own trust in ourselves, before looking to extend this to our trust in others.

How To Meditate To Build Self-Trust

There are many meditations for trust that we love to practise here at Dragonfly - but we especially love Tamara Levitt’s meditation for self-trust. Here is our own guided meditation, with the wise words of many meditation leaders included along the way.

Start in a comfortable position - we find a seated position to be best, either with crossed legs on the floor or upright on a chair, with a small cushion placed between your lower back and the chair to keep you supported, and your bare feet flat on the ground.

Close your eyes. Notice any points of tension in the body, and breathe in to these muscles - avoid the temptation to force your muscles into relaxation, it is enough to simply notice where the body is tense and use the breath to encourage relaxation. Unstick the tongue from the roof of the mouth, and allow a soft smile to smooth the jaw. Breathe in the forehead; give the facial muscles permission to soften and melt.

We like to use box breathing to help us focus on our breath at the beginning of the meditation: breathe in for a count of four, hold for four, breathe out for a count of four, hold for four - then repeat. The breathing creates a kind of box pattern, with the holds at each end of the breath. 

Practise square breathing for four or five breaths, then allow your natural breathing pattern to return. Keep the focus on your breath - it can help to try to pinpoint the moment when an exhale turns into an inhale, and when an inhale turns into an exhale.

Maintain this focus for around two to three minutes - when the mind wanders and other thoughts begin to distract, don’t worry or berate yourself… remember that the mind is a busy place, so distraction is bound to happen, and gently bring your thoughts back to focus on the breath with no judgement or criticism for drifting concentration. Judging ourselves for not doing the meditation “right” is counterproductive; instead, offer yourself the self-compassion you deserve and keep gently tugging your thoughts back to the breath. Notice if any thoughts in particular create strong feeling or emotional reaction, but no need to feel the need to ‘fix’ these thoughts.

One great way to visualise passing thoughts, is by imagining you are sitting by the side of a motorway - which Andy Puddicombe narrates in his guided mediation app, Headspace. Your thoughts are the passing cars, and your role is simply to observe those thoughts coming and going. Some will be noisier and seem more dangerous than others: avoid the temptation to try to run into the road and control the traffic… if you imagine the effect of this in real-life, this would do far more harm than good! Instead, simply keep track of the thoughts as they pass, noticing if similar thoughts tend to pass with greater frequency or speed than others. This visualisation often helps us to distance ourselves from our thoughts, and understand that they are passing - we do not have to be defined by them, or allow them to control the way we feel.

At this point in the meditation, loosen your grip a little on your concentration, allowing the mind to go where it wants to for a minute. 

We often lose trust in ourselves through decisions or choices we make, which don’t have the desired outcome. It is much easier to remember when our choices have ended in an undesirable outcome, than it is to remember when our choices have led us to great things. One way to develop trust through meditation, is to practise the exercise of recalling times when your choices have led to positive outcomes, even unexpectedly so, and remembering in detail your feelings at the time of the positive outcome and how you made a choice that achieved it. 

There will always be times when you have made a good choice, but these can be harder to recall for some who really feel lacking in self-trust. If you feel you cannot remember any, then focus simply on the right here, right now: thank yourself for taking the time to make the positive choice that has led you to meditation practice and the intention to rebuild trust that this choice represents. After the meditation, it can help to speak to a loved one - ask them to recall a good choice that you made, and the impact that this choice had. You may find a choice you made had a profoundly positive impact on somebody’s life, without even realising!

To bring the meditation to a close, come back to the breath. When you’re ready, become aware again of the floor beneath your feet, the sounds in your immediate surroundings, and slowly open your eyes.

The Best Yoga Classes for Building Trust

It’s best to meditate little and often - the ten minutes you spend at the beginning of a day can go far to settle your mind for the rest of it. 

Meditation is included as part of yoga practice, and as meditation develops trust in the mind, yoga practice helps to root trust in your body. Our classes always include elements of meditation - why not try a Yin yoga class to help you begin your journey into meditation? Having an expert to guide you through the meditation can be a great way to begin the habit of meditation - we love Laura’s Sunday Yin yoga class here at Dragonfly to help us de-stress, and set us in the right frame of mind for the week ahead.

Above all, remember that in order to develop a healthy attitude towards trusting others, you must first trust yourself. This is not an overnight change: trust, as Brene Brown writes, is built in small moments, and once built, can be the key to a life of bravery and whole-heartedness.

Start your journey to building healthy trust today, by visiting our timetable to join a class - either in our newly refurbished studio, or online.

The Health Benefits of Yoga

Yoga is an investment: the more you put in, the more you get out.

For centuries, people have turned to yoga as a route to improving health and happiness - and it’s a practice that has certainly stood the test of time. But what exactly are the benefits of the ancient practice of yoga?

Psychologists and scientific researchers have conducted thousands of studies on the many health benefits of yoga. Here at Dragonfly, our yoga teachers love to combine their expert knowledge on the science behind yoga with their own unique practice style to help our yogis to develop mind, body and soul.

Read on to find out the results of the studies we rate highly, and to find out how yoga could be the next step you take to improving your wellbeing and quality of life.

The benefits can be organised into three main areas - we like to call these The Three ‘M’s: Muscle, Movement, and Mood...

Muscle

Core strength is at the heart of great yoga practice: we like to think of it as the starting point, from which all yoga poses and transitions extend. Take a look at our beginner’s guide to yoga poses, to start building up your core strength. Core strength is built by regular practice, rather than intense but very spread out workouts. Often, the best way to really kickstart good habits with core strength is to attend classes - which allow you to explore your core strength in a guided environment, on a regular basis. Pilates is also a great way to build core strength, as well as Hatha yoga classes which really focus on using strength to keep stillness in each pose.

...But it doesn’t stop at core strength! Yoga works on the interconnectivity of the muscles, visualised as energy flowing from one area of the body to another. A yoga sequence will  allow you to isolate and work on the strength in one area of your body, before transitioning this energy to another area - giving you a full body workout.

Building muscle strength not only keeps you fit, it can also alleviate chronic back pain or poor posture, as you build muscle in the body that improves the way you naturally carry yourself. For posture fixes, take a look at our guide to improving your posture.

Recovery is a key element of muscle health, and recent studies have shown that yoga practice such as Yin yoga helps reduce muscle inflammation, by breaking down the lactic acid in the muscles which is built up after exercise. We recommend doing a Yin class to help the muscles fully recover and improve flexibility, straight after a high intensity yoga practice like Vinyasa Flow or Hatha Flow - why not try this with us on Wednesday evenings?

Movement

Yoga practice is underpinned by the belief that the body’s energy must be balanced equally, and that we sometimes experience energy blocks: parts of the body where energy cannot flow freely through the body. To tackle these energy blocks, yoga works to keep energy moving through the body - or in other words, yoga helps to keep the blood circulating through all parts of the body and the breath even and consistent. 

The physical benefits that can be achieved through this balance of energy flow are better circulation, leading to a healthier heart, and open breathing, leading to healthier lungs. Flow classes, such as Ashtanga or Vinyasa, are best for cardiovascular conditioning, since these classes up the heart rate which over time, studies have shown improve your endurance, expand your intake of oxygen during exercise, and lower your resting heart rate. This is a great combat against high cholesterol and when practised regularly, can maintain a healthy heart. Those with high blood pressure have also found that yoga is proven to lower systolic blood pressure: in fact, the Savasana pose was associated with a 26-point drop in pressure, compared with simply lying on the sofa. 

It’s not only movement of blood and oxygen through the body which yoga improves, though - it also improves control, movement and flexibility of the joints and muscles. The strength which yoga builds in the muscles (as mentioned earlier), combined with the balance and spatial awareness developed by frequent practice does wonders to improve your range of movement and flexibility. This can prevent falls and accidents, particularly later on in life, when without regular exercise and balance practice we can often experience a loss in range of movement or the control over our bodies.

Mood

The physical benefits gained from yoga through the muscles and movement are mirrored in the positive impact on our mood. Yoga is based on the core principle of marrying the body with the mind, so it’s no surprise that studies have shown the benefits of yoga to extend beyond the physical, to our mental wellbeing.

The main hormone in the body that is responsible for feelings of stress is cortisol. Through exercising the whole body and investing in breathing and meditation practice, yoga is known to decrease levels of cortisol in the body - making our stress more manageable. Not only this, but even when we are experiencing high levels of cortisol due to inevitable tough times in our lives which are out of our control, yoga practitioners are significantly better prepared to deal with their stress - their good habits with meditation and exercise kicking in, allowing yogis to regain perspective on the situation much more quickly than those without meditation in their habits. 

On top of decreasing cortisol and stress, yoga can also increase ‘happy hormones’ in the body such as dopamine and endorphins. Flexibility is closely linked with decreasing stress, since stretching is known to release endorphins - giving you a happiness boost. Don’t believe us? Try including a morning stretch in child’s pose and monitor how it impacts your mood for the rest of the day.

Nothing has a greater impact on mood than good quality sleep. The benefits of making sure you get enough rest at the end of each day have been studied by psychologists for many years. Sleep is the body and mind’s vital time to recharge its resources, make repairs, and allow the brain to work through the information of the day - and without consistent, quality sleep, we can fall into patterns of depression, as well as negative impacts on our physical health.

There are many ways to improve your sleep - such as avoiding screen time (especially harmful blue light) less than one hour before you plan to sleep, turning down lights in the house in the evenings to start your body’s natural closing-down process as part of your circadian rhythm, and making sure you go to bed and wake up at similar times each day.  Restorative Yin Yoga encourages the body and mind to wind down before sleep, and also is a great way to practice breathing techniques, which allow you to develop the skill of relaxing your body and slowing your heart rate before bed. Having trouble getting to sleep or feeling constantly drained? Try going to our Yin yoga classes in the evenings, to improve sleep quality and boost your energy throughout the day.

Be it for muscle, movement or mind, there are so many benefits to taking time and space for ourselves during our busy working days to practise. It’s important to read up on the types of yoga out there, so you can select classes which will have the most positive impact. We recommend reading through the teacher bios - as these bios are insights from the experts into what they will most likely focus on in their classes. 

Definitely have a chat with your yoga teacher too, as they can use their expertise to offer bespoke advice on how yoga might specifically benefit your unique health needs. We love our individuality as human beings here at Dragonfly, so we like to make sure our advice is tailored to our yogis!

...Begin your journey to better health and wellbeing today, by taking a look at our online and in-studio classes on our timetable. We’re here to help - so if you’ve got questions about how yoga might be able to improve your personal health needs, whether for a specific area or for all-round health, then we’d love to hear from you and give you some guidance