Try Hatha Yoga for Stress Relieving

I have mentioned in my last blog post that many types of exercises indeed have a positive effect on reducing the stress and increasing the degree of happiness including mental exercises and aerobic exercises. I find an exercise that combine the mental exercises and aerobic exercises perfectly, which is known as Hatha Yoga.

Why Hatha Yoga?

I chose a section of beginner Hatha Yoga to examine the degree of effectiveness in relieving stress. Hatha Yoga is an easy and suitable exercise for people in workplace, which may have a limited space for other type of exercises like jogging. Hatha yoga also does not have any special requirements for time schedule equipment and physical ability. People do not need to spend too much time on it to see the outcome. Only several postures can make you calm down and focus on the next stage of working and studying.

My Experience

At Wednesday night, I spent 20 minutes in trying this new technique to relieve stress. Before doing Hatha yoga, I did feel so tried after the whole day studying. I carefully chose a home yoga section for beginners in YouTube and followed the guider’s instructions and movements. My experience of Hatha yoga began with the breathing exercises. This is a part similar to the medication practice. However, yoga practice focus more on associate the breath, mind and body. In the practice, I just forgot the worry of incoming exams and assignments. I did not think of anything and just tried to listen to the guider and followed her instructions to complete the postures. I just enjoyed those movements and the peace during the Hatha yoga practice. After the section, I found the relief from body and mentation. I think that I love doing yoga practice and I will definitely learn more about this technique.

Reflection

To be honest, although I mentioned guided meditation may also help you reduce stress, I prefer doing yoga over doing guided meditation because it is more effective and enjoyable than the guided meditation.

After several sections of Hatha yoga, I have summarized some postures which I think is relatively easy and effective for people in workplace to reduce stress in a short time period.

The first posture that I would like to recommend is cat-cow pose. Cat-cow consist of 2 pose, the cat pose and the cow pose. You can easily find a more specific description online. Through the movements transferred between those two poses, you can feel the energy’s movements along with your breathing movements. When you exhale, it seems like all the pressures and negative thoughts was pushed out of your body. By doing so, you can easily come down and conquer all the negative feelings.

Another pose that I would recommend for the beginners of Hatha yoga is Anahatasana which is more like a half-downward dog. This pose allows you to stretch the muscles of the shoulders. In this way, the employees in workplace especially people who often face the computer screen can relax their muscle sore.

Next step plan

In my next blog post, I would like to discuss more details about how to eliminate the stress from its source and how to work with other people in workplace to reduce stress. I will also mention some interaction with people after work to reduce the stress.