How Yoga Improves Your Mental and Spiritual Health

Most health and fitness experts recommend incorporating yoga as part of your workout routine. This relaxing exercise is popular because it can help improve your body’s flexibility and unwinds you from the stress you feel from dealing with everyday life.

But did you know that yoga also helps improve your mental and spiritual health too? According to the licensed psychotherapist and yoga teacher Ashley Turner, yoga is the key to emotional and psychological healing. It can even help you resolve your issues in self-esteem and your relationships. Here’s how yoga can help improve your mental and spiritual well-being.

It Shifts from Your Sympathetic to Parasympathetic Nervous System

Dealing with chronic stress causes us to have elevated cortisol hormone levels which are dangerous to our health according to Turner. The constant fight or flight mode we have not only wreaks our body’s system but it also triggers weight gain and inflammation too.

Yoga can turn off chronic stress by shifting your body from the sympathetic nervous system to the parasympathetic nervous system. It activates your rest and digest mood which helps calm your nervous system, increase your endorphins or happy hormones to ease your stress away.

It Lets You Get To Know Yourself More

The moment your body calms down from the stress, you’re able to achieve inner peace and you’ll feel as if the external world seems to fade away, according to Turner. This gives you the opportunity to know more about yourself and think things through in a calm and logical manner.

Whether you’re troubled at work or in your personal relationships, it gives you the time to meditate to think where things go wrong as well as think of solutions on how you can make it right.

This sense of thinking not only sharpens your mental health but it also helps build your self-confidence. According to Turner, you develop a healthy balanced ego wherein you seek inner peace and acceptance for yourself first. The moment you accept yourself for who you are, your flaws, strengths, and weakness, you’ll realize you have nothing to prove and hide. You become courageous enough to make a difference and to carve your own path, despite the challenges you’ll encounter.

It Also Improves Your Relationship With Your Significant Other

The moment you came at peace with yourself, you’ll be looking the same way with your partner too. You don’t feel the doubt and fear linger any longer since you have put your trust into your partner. You’re able to give them the compassion and unconditional love they need.

Dealing with chronic stress causes our body to have dangerous cortisol levels. This level of trust and understanding are crucial in establishing a life-long commitment like marriage or relationships.

It Helps You Recognize Your Shadow Qualities.

Aside from bringing out the best in you, yoga also makes you recognize the qualities you have but you’re unaware of. For example, how do you react to a particular scene (nature perhaps) and where do you hold the emotions you feel like the tension, calmness, tightness, or knots of energy?

These enable you to identify where you hold your emotional or psychological energy and harness them when needed. For example, you may have to open your heart and exhale deeply to release the stiffness in your body. This helps not only in dealing with physical stress but also in your emotional release. You became more aware of how your body copes up in times of stress.