What is Yoga for Anxiety and Depression?

This is a specialised style of yoga which helps to reduce anxiety symptoms in mind and body. The course teaches you to calm the nervous system through taming the stress response, teaching practical skills to calm your flight and flight response. With regular practice students have reported a decrease in anxiety and much greater control of managing the physical symptoms of anxiety such as: 
 

• Anxiety, constant worry, racing thoughts 

• Panic, fear, shallow breathing, beating heart 

• Headache and confusion 

“Anxiety is often worrying about future events and imagining something bad might happen. So anything that brings us int the moment is helpful as it stops us worrying about the future. This is exactly what yoga does” 
 

Who is Yoga for Anxiety Depression suitable for? 

Anyone. In today’s stressful world just about everyone will benefit from learning how to calm their nervous system. However, this course is particularly helpful for anyone experiencing regular anxiety attacks and is struggling with the symptoms mentioned above. 

“After completing my Yoga for Anxiety with Jo. All I could feel was relief. Jo is amazing. It was like constant light bulbs going off in my head. Before this course I had no idea that I could use my body and nervous system to control and manage my anxiety symptoms” Dionne, WA.  

 
How does Yoga for Anxiety and Depression work? 

When we experience regular anxiety, we tend to be in our head and have often lost the ability to be present in the body. This style of yoga not only brings you in the body but helps you to understand your nervous system. Highly anxious people are often unaware that they are constantly activating their sympathetic nervous system – constantly feeling stressed and holding muscle tension – this yoga helps students to understand their nervous system and focuses on activating the para sympathetic nervous system providing our bodies with cues to rest and digest – which relieves feelings of anxiety. 

This yoga also works with rewiring the brain so we begin to create new neural pathways in our brain,  so we can pause and create calmer responses  instead of immediate feeling worry and panic.  
 

• Tune into the body and recognize anxiety symptoms before they develop 
  Learn carefully selected postures that balance and calm the nervous system, supporting emotional self-regulation 

• Learn how to activate the para sympathetic nervous system - which cues the body for rest and relaxation 

• Learn breathing techniques that calm anxiety symptoms. 

• Begin to approach situations with presence and curiosity rather than panic and worry