It’s International Yoga Day and we wanted to highlight some poses that can help tackle stress, fatigue, and burnout. As life heads back to normalcy, we’re feeling more burnt out than ever. Below, you’ll find some tips from yoga instructor Liza Colpa. Liza works with YogaToday, an app that provides some incredible yoga workouts on the go. In even better news, YogsToday is running a special 1-day only annual membership sale today 6/21 for 50% off with code YOGA21.
Yoga and Stress
“Yoga is a great workout for targeting stress because it is a mind-body workout that focuses more on meeting yourself where you are at or exploring challenges from a positive pro-active perspective,” says Colpa. “When you are feeling burnt out, tired, or like you just want to take it easy, yoga holds that space for you.”
Five Poses for Tackling Stress
Supine Twist: If you are a desk worker or someone who experiences back tension, this is for you. This pose allows you to elongate through the sides of the body, while literally twisting the spine and internal organs. It creates compression in the core, which allows for elongation and stretching throughout every other part of the body. Specifically the back, shoulders, neck. Say bye to back and upper body tension.
Legs up the wall: Putting your feet up not only triggers the parasympathetic nervous system (the nervous system that allows us to rest) but it literally sends your blood flow towards the heart. This is great for those with high blood pressure! After a long day, nothing beats putting your feet up.
Pigeon pose (traditional or reclined): Yoga philosophy says are emotions are stored in the hips, and if you have ever explored this pose you’ll understand why. This pose will allow you to explore the intensity of deep hip stretching. This is turn allows you to explore all emotions that come up. Highly recommend it during emotionally stressful times.
Thread the Needle: This another posture that helps release shoulder and neck tension. It also is a twisting poster, but this time the compression focuses on the upper body. It helps really release jaw tension and face tension as well.
Supported Savasana: In this pose you are taking Savasana to the next level by using props. I love putting pillows under my knees or using a yoga bolster. Feeling held by the props, allows us to return to a time in our lives where we were held and could trigger thoughts and emotions of safety. When we are stressed, it feels so good to just be held.