Blog Post #2: Doing Yoga to Alleviate Stress

    Yoga is available in many different modalities and ability levels. Yoga helps connect our physical and mental aspects and aims to improve both. Yoga involves physical movements, methods of relaxation, meditation, and breathing exercises. Yoga has been known to improve overall health, such as lowering blood pressure, improving heart health, and reducing anxiety. Hatha yoga, the most common and popular type of yoga, is suitable for beginners and effective for stress relief. It involves various movements, breathing exercises, and mindfulness through meditation. Here is a link to a “Hatha yoga” video that I have completed a few times over the past week that you might find helpful:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eD2HvTVdkk4

 

    Another interesting and relatively new form of yoga is Laughing Yoga. Laughter is known to promote good health while also alleviating stress. Combining laughing with all of the other benefits of yoga seems like a winning combination, so I thought I would learn more about it!  https://www.nbcnews.com/better/video/the-secret-to-health-and-happiness-laughing-at-yourself-990829635583  (Click this link to check out a video about the benefits of laughter). 

 

    I came across a video on YouTube called “Laughter Yoga In The Classroom”. In this video, I witnessed a group of classmates participate in laughter yoga and they really seemed to be having a good time and letting loose. Here is the link to the video in case you want to check it out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Uv3xU4PnWg

    

    I think this form of yoga is something you can do by yourself or even grab a group of friends and relieve stress together. “Leave your ego at the door” was a big take-away for me from what I learned about laughter yoga because I think you can feel quite silly doing this at first!

 

    The final type of yoga I looked at was “Goat Yoga” which combines our innate love for animals with our desire to alleviate stress through yoga. This is something I remember Brock doing a few years back so I wanted to discover if this really helps or not. While researching this yoga, I saw an overlap between all three yoga formats; Hatha, Laughter, and Goat. Andrea Mills of Lipscomb University participated in goat yoga and found, “Goat Yoga is such a perfect fit for today because it promotes laughter. Laughter is one of the most amazing stress relievers, because it releases dopamine, which is something that naturally lowers stress levels. And we have seen that today as the goats have walked in, there have been students smiling and experiencing joy.”  Check out this video for some adorable goat yoga content: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KWmbbQkyy8

  

            

I hope this blog post has intrigued you to try some different forms of yoga to help with the alleviation of stress with this new school year!

 

Points for reflection…

 

This week, as I progress through my online studies, I find myself somewhat conflicted in trying to find a balance between my academic workload, life’s daily demands, and finding time for self-care. As reflected in my blog, self-care and stress management are vital to one’s wellbeing. Over the next week, I will be focusing on my own work/life balance and time management to incorporate the positive activities I have found for alleviating stress. Before my next Genius Hour, I will test out my Yoga activities and use my evaluation scale to document its effectiveness at managing stress levels. From here, I will build upon the repertoire of approaches to stress reduction over the six weeks to arrive at an effective combination of worthwhile activities I can use to bring positivity into my life.