Why Your Yoga Practice Should Make You Happier At Work

A recent study published by Occupational Medicine shows that yoga programs in the workplace have a positive effect on mental health, especially in reducing stress. Yoga encourages cognitive flexibility, patience, self-acceptance and expanded awareness—all benefits that go well beyond the changes it yields in the physical body.

If you have been struggling to reach your career goals and remain content, your yoga practice may be the solution to increase your happiness at work.

While career tips often focus solely on external achievement and are rigid or formulaic, to be happier in your work life, you need to interpret and apply a career plan that is variable and nuanced. Having the clearer, grounded and more flexible mindset that yoga brings is a career advantage.

Here are five yoga-inspired career tips to help you bring what you are learning on the mat into the office.

1. Remember to thank yourself

Unlike most business goals, yoga is not about achievement or competition. If you make it to the studio or get started at home, you can, and should, thank yourself simply for showing up.

The hardest and most important step is already behind you. You rolled out your mat with an intention to do something good for yourself, and in doing so, you are taking part in the creation of a better world. This is the same sentiment that will propel you much further in your career if you can harness this intention in the workplace.

Each morning when you sit down to your desk, thank yourself for showing up and playing a part in a world where peace, purpose and joy can become the norm in your work life. Simply showing up with this intention gets us all one step closer to reimagining the possibilities of how work can and should positively shape humanity.

2. Recognise the presence of ego and ignorance

If warrior pose makes you feel glorious and powerful, take that same energy into your office and have the strength to see and address dysfunctional dynamics. I’m not suggesting that you go on a mission to point out the ego or ignorance of your boss or co-workers. The benefits of yoga have to start within you first.

The yogi should have greater self-awareness of their own blind spots in the workplace and a willingness to recognize the role unconscious biases may be playing in building a diverse and inclusive culture.

The employee or leader that brings the warrior pose into work is stronger and more confident, and therefore open to the vulnerability required to create a work environment that is kind, agile, productive and innovative.

3. Stay rooted in your beliefs

Your mind, body and spirit connection is crucial to achieving your most meaningful work. Tree pose encourages you to stay rooted in who you are beyond your titles, traits and personality.

By integrating your work and spiritual life, you will see a host of benefits: you will know your worth and your power, stop accepting a work existence that drains you, help others achieve their potential and learn to be patient with your flaws and the flaws of others. You will be a loyal co-worker and a more supportive leader, weather and welcome change, and live your days with peace and joy.

Tree pose is simple, but miraculous, and so are the benefits of staying in it at work. Make sure you are living a soulful existence and bringing that identity into the office each day.

4. Reach for higher goals

In cobra pose you are firmly supported on the ground, but also extending yourself to reach for more. This is a tricky balance to achieve in your work life—stretching out of your comfort zone, while staying stable.

The beauty of cobra is that you start the pose with your belly safely pressed against the ground; it’s impossible to fall or tip over in this position. Peace is not meant to stop you from taking risks or reaching for new goals; it is meant to stabilize you so you can be bolder without the fear of failing.

This stability should remove, or lessen, the underlying insecurities that cause you to play small in your career or ignore your dreams. Cobra pose encourages you to point your ambitions upward and know you are supported.

5. Welcome a state of non-doing

Child’s pose reminds you that rest and non-doing are also an important part of your life. Imagine a yoga class with no breaks in the flow and no poses that encourage rest—sounds terrible, right? Yet many of us create a work life that fails to acknowledge the restorative power of rest and states of non-doing.

The most successful and productive people I’ve worked with knew how to refresh themselves, renew their creativity and incubate new ideas. They also failed to succumb to career interrupting, and sometimes derailing, bouts of burnout.

Sure, the person that works around the clock might have more outputs in the short term, but burnout will eventually rob you of your productivity, creativity or both. Let child’s pose inspire you to create a rhythm in your life that welcomes rest.

Yoga is meant to impact your life well beyond your time in the studio and can help you achieve extraordinary outcomes in your career. Dare to practice it in all areas of your work life.

Original Article – Forbes.

7 WAYS TO PREVENT WORK/LIFE STRESS

Do you struggle with work/life stress? Have you ever found it hard to leave your work stress at work? Does it impact your family, not just you? Lots of people talk about work life balance, but I believe a much better term is work life alignment – when your work and the rest of your life function together, supporting each other.

The American Psychological Association reports that 61% of Americans report feeling stressed about work. This is a huge societal problem. We’ve all been there. Worries from a crap day at work leak into family life. You snap or growl at someone – complete over-reaction. They’re stunned, and hurt. Really – you’re still stuck on what happened – or didn’t happen at work. But now it is impacting your loved ones.

Work life stress vs work life alignment

Work is not optional for most of us. We’ve all gotta make bank. Work can be awesome. I really enjoy what I do, but that doesn’t mean it is perfect. It gives and it takes.  I’ve benefited from that in many ways. Often work and the rest of life help each other out. Work kept me going – gave me a distraction when things were tough. They were super supportive and flexible. Now I give back to them too. I am available at odd hours. But they let me look after my family and fulfil my other important roles during classic work hours too. I also remember during the financial crisis when I worked in banking that wasn’t much fun – then my family life helped compensate for the struggles at work.

The classic 9-5 is gone for most of us and the boundaries between work and home have blurred. That’s where work life alignment comes in. It is when you’re comfortable in both environments – when one doesn’t occur at the expense of each other, and when they support each other.

7 Tips for preventing work stress from affecting the rest of life

• Be open, honest and authentic – be yourself in both situations. tell people what is going on. Goes both ways. Have a small vent if you need to – then move on

• First things first – if you’ve got something big on – focus on it, whether it is work or family – otherwise you’re lying to yourself and others

• Finish stuff – don’t let it hang over you all weekend. Finish it on Friday afternoon while you’re all warmed up anyway – you won’t regret it.

• Write a start up list for tomorrow – write down the stuff you haven’t finished for tomorrow. Review it in the morning – you may find some of it suddenly isn’t necessary

• Separate environment – even if you’re working from home – have a workspace where you don’t spend time otherwise – even if it is just a corner of a room – switch things off

• Transition – create space (mentally) so you can leave work behind before you re-enter family life. Use the both to help transition your mind – move, breathe, talk

• Gratitude – can’t be stressed and grateful at the same time – be thankful for everything that your work and life enable – even when it’s bad, there’s still good.

If you found this article helpful, give it a like, a comment or share it with a friend! Head over to Craig’s website for more helpful articles.

Article by Craig Hopper, Owner of TIY.

STUDY: THE EFFECT OF YOGA ON STRESS, ANXIETY AND DEPRESSION IN WOMEN

Most of us have heard in recent years how yoga can help reduce feelings of stress, anxiety and depression in our life. In recent decades, several medical and scientific studies on yoga proved it to be very useful in the treatment of some diseases. This study was conducted to investigate the effects of yoga on stress, anxiety, and depression in women with a mean age of 33.5 ± 6.5 years after 12 yoga classes.

Before each participant started integrating Hatha yoga into their lives, they each completed the DASS-21 (Depression Anxiety Stress Scale-21) questionnaire to assess their current mental health. The women then participated in 3 Hatha yoga training sessions per week for 4 weeks. At the end of the 12th session, the questionnaire of DASS-21 was again completed by the participants. It was found that the difference between the mean scores of depression, anxiety, and stress before and after 12 sessions of regular Hatha yoga was statistically significant with an overall decrease in the participants depression, anxiety and stress.

This controlled study continues to show that yoga can be used as a complementary medicine to reduce feelings of anxiety, depression, and stress. Increased stress, depression and anxiety are unfortunately features of our modern lifestyles. Due to the adverse effects of drugs in the treatment of anxiety and depression, and in some cases their lack of effectiveness, researchers have been seeking nonpharmacological and non-invasive treatment for these disorders. Yoga exercises helped improve the variables of self-description, psychological status, and the quality of life. Research suggests that yoga as an intellectual and mental exercise, improves the feeling of health in individuals.

Furthermore, yoga can improve some of these psychological conditions for monitoring and managing stress and negative emotions, increase positive emotions, and help mental balance in individuals.

Due to the effective role yoga has on reducing stress, anxiety, and depression, practicing yoga will only help improve your mental health. Step onto you mat at one of our studios today to experience these benefits for yourself.

Study - NCBI.NLM.NIH.

YOGA BENEFITS BEYOND THE MAT

Yoga, an ancient practice and meditation, has become increasingly popular in today's busy society. For many people, yoga provides a retreat from their chaotic and busy lives. This is true whether you're practicing downward facing dog posture on a mat in your bedroom, in an ashram in India or even on Bondi Beach on a busy day. Yoga provides many other mental and physical benefits. Some of these extend to the kitchen table.

Keep reading to see how Yoga’s benefits extend beyond the mat. 👇

Types Of Yoga

There are many types of yoga. Hatha (a combination of many styles) is one of the most popular styles. It is a more physical type of yoga rather than a still, meditative form. Hatha yoga focuses on pranayamas (breath-controlled exercises). These are followed by a series of asanas (yoga postures), which end with savasana (a resting period).

The goal during yoga practice is to challenge yourself physically, but not to feel overwhelmed. At this "edge," the focus is on your breath while your mind is accepting and calm.

A Better Body Image

Yoga develops inner awareness. It focuses your attention on your body's abilities at the present moment. It helps develop breath and strength of mind and body. It's not about physical appearance.

Yoga studios typically don't have mirrors. This is so people can focus their awareness inward rather than how a pose — or the people around them — looks. Surveys have found that those who practiced yoga were more aware of their bodies than people who didn't practice yoga. They were also more satisfied with and less critical of their bodies. For these reasons, yoga has become an integral part in the treatment of eating disorders and programs that promote positive body image and self-esteem.

Becoming a Mindful Eater

Mindfulness refers to focusing your attention on what you are experiencing in the present moment without judging yourself.

Practicing yoga has been shown to increase mindfulness not just in class, but in other areas of a person's life.

Researchers describe mindful eating as a nonjudgmental awareness of the physical and emotional sensations associated with eating. They developed a questionnaire to measure mindful eating using these behaviours:

• Eating even when full (disinhibition)

• Being aware of how food looks, tastes and smells

• Eating in response to environmental cues, such as the sight or smell of food

• Eating when sad or stressed (emotional eating)

• Eating when distracted by other things

The researchers found that people who practiced yoga were more mindful eaters according to their scores. Both years of yoga practice and number of minutes of practice per week were associated with better mindful eating scores. Practicing yoga helps you be more aware how your body feels. This heightened awareness can carry over to mealtime as you savour each bite or sip, and note how food smells, tastes and feels in your mouth.

A Boost To Weight Loss and Maintenance

People who practice yoga and are mindful eaters are more in tune with their bodies. They may be more sensitive to hunger cues and feelings of fullness.

Researchers found that people who practiced yoga for at least 30 minutes once a week for at least four years, gained less weight during middle adulthood. People who were overweight actually lost weight. Overall, those who practiced yoga had lower body mass indexes (BMIs) compared with those who did not practice yoga. Researchers attributed this to mindfulness. Mindful eating can lead to a more positive relationship with food and eating.

Enhancing Fitness

Yoga is known for its ability to soothe tension and anxiety in the mind and body. But it can also have an impact on a person's exercise capacity.

Researchers studied a small group of sedentary individuals who had not practiced yoga before. After eight weeks of practicing yoga at least twice a week for a total of 180 minutes, participants had greater muscle strength and endurance, flexibility and cardio-respiratory fitness.

Cardiovascular Benefits

Several small studies have found yoga to have a positive effect on cardiovascular risk factors: It helped lower blood pressure in people who have hypertension. It's likely that the yoga restores "baroreceptor sensitivity." This helps the body senses imbalances in blood pressure and maintain balance.

Another study found that practicing yoga improved lipid profiles in healthy patients as well as patients with known coronary artery disease. It also lowered excessive blood sugar levels in people with non-insulin dependent diabetes and reduced their need for medications. Yoga is now being included in many cardiac rehabilitation programs due to its cardiovascular and stress-relieving benefits.

Before you start a new exercise program, be sure to check with your doctor.

Researchers are now also studying how yoga can help people with depression and arthritis, and even improve survival from cancer.

Yoga may help bring calm and mindfulness to your busy life, so book in with us to start experiencing these benefits and the feelings of calmness & happiness for yourself!

Original Post – Harvard Medical School