It’s hard to believe that first term is almost half over, with distant essays and assessments lining up and ready to attack! With six weeks left to go until a well deserved Christmas break, stress is making a grand entrance to University life. Before you start to hyperventilate and lock yourself in your room with Nutella and a Ryan Gosling movie, Her Campus has another suggestion for giving yourself a healthier break—with has lasting effects!
Yoga has many faces, but whether you think of the ancient Indian tradition as one of old men in diapers chanting in Sanskrit, or of svelte gym yogis picking out push up bras for yoga class, science has proven the benefits of a consistent yoga practice. Yoga helps with flexibility, strength and posture, as well as reducing anxiety by lowering cortisol and preventing arthritis and back pain. Consistent practice of Yoga also nourishes the spine, detoxes the liver, reduces head aches, and has countless other both physical and spiritual advantages. By soothing the parasympathetic nervous system and lowers cortisol, Yoga is a go-to for when you’re feeling your most stressed.
Try out some of these poses to help relax and let go of the stress of the impending assessments:
1. Child’s Pose—Balasana
How to do: Kneel so that your feet touch each other and sit back on your heels. Knees can be together or slightly apart if that feels good. Exhale and relax your torso onto your knees, letting go of your neck and letting your arms fall behind you or in front. Close your eyes and listen to your breath.
Benefits: Relieves back and neck pain, improves flexibility in the ankles and hips, lowers cortisol levels and calms the mind.
2. Forward Fold—Uttanasana
How to do: From a standing position with your toes and heels together, inhale length through your torso. Exhale and forward fold over your legs, still creating length through your torso. Feet are grounded strong and kneecaps lift.
Benefits: Improves digestion, detoxes liver and kidneys, relieves anxiety and depression, strengthens legs and stretches hamstrings.
3. Cat-Cow Pose
How to do: From all fours, inhale and lift your gaze toward the ceiling, letting the rest of your spine follow in a downward curve. Exhale and move your gaze between your legs, rounding your spine in the opposite direction. Repeat with this breath pattern as many times as feel good.
Benefits: stretches torso, releases tension in spine, nourishes spinal discs, relieves anxiety.
4. Plow—Halasana
How to do: Lying on your back, use your hands as a support behind you to help you up into a shoulder stand. Exhale and let your legs fall behind your head, keeping your torso straight. Keep your shoulder blades tucked under, and clasp your hands behind you. Keep a two inch space between the back of your neck and the floor to protect it. Make sure not to move your head side to side in this pose as it is dangerous for the scalene muscles of the neck. When you are ready to come out, roll down vertebrae by vertebrae.
Benefits: Stimulates thyroid and metabolism, detoxes abdominal organs, reduces anxiety, relieves insomnia.
5. Head stand—Sirsasana
How to do: It is helpful to try this against a wall the first few times. Stopping at any prep position along the way will get you the same benefits as any inversion. Place the crown of your head on the floor with your hands a foot in front of your face. All ten fingers face you and are visible. Elbows bend straight backwards and form a 90 degree angle. Lift up onto your toes (downward dog with your head on the ground). Walk your feet toward your face and one by one lift one knee onto each elbow. Lift both knees into the chest. Lift your legs up, letting your knees fall behind. Lift your lower legs straight up. When you’re ready to come down, lower both legs slowly, with control, and at the same time.
Benefits: stimulates pituitary and pineal glands, relieves anxiety, reduces tiredness, tones the abdominal organs and muscles, improves digestion.
In Sanskrit “Yoga” literally means union. This can be interpreted a lot of ways—the union of ourselves with others, ourselves with the world, or the union of our own body, mind, and spirit. Always remember that yoga is not just a physical practice; it is a way of seeing and interacting with the world. If you take the relaxation and grace you feel during these poses and remember them out in the world, you will truly be practicing yoga, and those pesky assessments won’t seem so daunting anymore.
Remember to practice these poses carefully, collegiettes! If you’re looking for a guided practice check out this site for a 15-day free trial of yoga videos. Also be sure to check out the Body Soc’s yoga classes, and the many yoga studios in Exeter.
Photo Credits:
askinyourface.com
teluguone.com
fitsugar.com
extendyoga.com
yogadestin.com