During my research I discovered that yoga has more physical benefits than I was aware of. I am unable to find all my class research, so I found a website that listed the same benefits as I found originally. According to www.yogabasics.com, practicing yoga as therapy can help conditions such as anxiety, arthritis, asthma, back pain, colds and the flu; depression, insomnia, headaches, and many more conditions. Personally, yoga has helped relieve me of headaches and back pain, but also anxiety.
As a dancer, student, and a person who works too many hours, anxiety is something I struggle with. During the school year I will sometimes have more than one dance performance per week (not including practices), and finding the time and patience to handle all the stress that comes with it is tiresome. I have found that the more often (and closer to my performances) I practice yoga, the more relaxed and focused I am during my performances.
Therefore, yoga is my favorite therapy. Since anxiety is my biggest obstacle, I use yoga to counteract it. When struggling with anxiety, I typically stick to the sun salutation (surya namaskar in Sanskrit) series. According to www.yogasite.com/sunsalute.htm, the sun salutation consists of 12 different flowing poses. The 12 different poses listed on YogaSite.com are pictured below, but I took pictures of myself doing the poses, instead of the stick pictures on YogaSite.com. In my research I didn’t necessarily find the sun salutation recommended for anxiety, but I use the sun salutation as a way to counteract my anxiety.
Here is the sun salutation series.
Pose #1 (feet should be placed flat on the ground, toes spread apart; mine weren’t because the wood was too hot)
Pose #2
Pose #3
Pose #4
Pose #5
Pose #6
Pose #7 – Whoops! My tag was showing
*After this pose, lunge forward and come to standing.
