Yoga. Some love it, some not so much. Whether you are a yoga lover or simply a yoga doer (or maybe you could care less about yoga), there’s no denying that participating in yoga has many positive health benefits. I love yoga. I find it to be very relaxing, strengthening, and in some cases empowering. I haven’t always had a love for yoga. In fact it took me a very long time to find my rhythm with yoga.

When I use to practice yoga I always found that I was exhausted afterwards. Yoga is meant to be challenging, but not in a manner where you have exhausted all of your energy. After a yoga session I would be so exhausted that I always ended up falling asleep when I was done. As a result of this I didn’t really practice yoga as often as I wanted to because I didn’t like the idea of not having any energy to be able to do anything else afterwards.

However, two years ago I started practicing yoga once a week for an hour of day. Since it took me a while to find my groove with yoga, a lot of the same experiences I was having prior to practicing yoga once a week were still happening for me. I was finding that I was still exhausted afterwards and that all I wanted to do was sleep. It took me about 2 months of consistently practicing yoga once a week to be able to shake these effects from the practice. [Read more…]

Feeling overwhelmed? Are you taking on more responsibility than what may be needed? Maybe you’re piling your plate up with more than what you can handle?

If this sounds anything like you I want you to know two things. One, you are not alone. I find myself doing everything I just stated above way more than I would like to admit, and way more than I should be doing. The second thing I want you to know is that if you can identify with anything I stated above, chances are you understand what it’s like to experience a great amount of stress, in such a short amount of time, as a result of overextending yourself.

This my friend has many names. Some that you may be familiar with are overwhelm, anxiety, and exhaustion. However, this feeling is most notably known as stress.

Stress is our body’s way of responding to overstimulation. When we experience a great deal of stress our body goes into defense mode. As a result of that we enter a “fight-or-flight” state of mind, better known as a stress response, which is our body’s way of protecting us.

Doesn’t sound too bad, right? Well it’s not, but if you’re a chronic stressor like me then you know that it can be very exhausting, and at times painful to constantly be under stress. There are many things you can do to help minimize your stress levels, such as squeezing a stress ball or even talking to someone about what’s going on.

However, while minimizing your stress levels is always a great start to experiencing less stress, it’s only temporary. To experience lower levels of stress more often your goal should be to relieve your mind and body of stress. To do this requires a little bit more effort, technique, and skill than just squeezing a stress ball or talking to someone. [Read more…]