Yoga to manage Stress

Stress is certainly the disease of the century. It affects more than 70% of people in our societies in overdrive of stimulation, growing quest for performance and success.

What is stress? There are 100 different definitions of stress which shows the imprecision of this term. Broadly speaking, you could say that “stress is the body's reaction to internal or external stimulation called a stressor.” The stressor could be your supervisor, your spouse, your job as well as your fears and apprehensions.

But "stress is above all a normal, desirable and positive reaction which is a general stimulation of the body to enable it to be more efficient". You have a job to return or a conference to give. The stress rises. Thanks to stress, you mobilize yourself to accomplish this work. The conference was a success, you received positive feed-back and acclaim. A feeling of satisfaction rises in you. It's good stress. In this case, the brain releases norepinephrine, the neurotransmitter of pleasure (a neurotransmitter is a chemical molecule that transmits messages from one neuron to another at synapses). Thanks to the pleasure shot, the body recovers, rests, and can start again.

The problem is bad stress and how long it lasts without recovery periods.

It is characterized by unsatisfactory or even frustrated stimulation that lasts too long. We exhaust ourselves. At the physiological level, stress is reflected in the tissues by generalized muscular tension; breathing is short, shallow, and irregular, the heart rate speeds up, this is called an unsynchronized cardiac coherence or in other words, heart rate variability.

How do we know if we are stressed? How can we measure it? One way is by measuring the heart rate variability. Does the heart rate increase on inspiration? Does it slow down on the exhalation?

Heart rate variability is the synchronization of the heart rate with the breath. When you inhale, your heart rate increases. When you exhale the heart rate drops. Why? Because inspiration is the sympathetic nervous system (fright or flight), and expiration is the parasympathetic nervous system (rest and digest). When we inhale, we activate the sympathetic system, the heart rate increases. When we exhale, we activate the parasympathetic nervous system, the heart rate slows down.

When the autonomic nervous system is in balance, this cardiac coherence takes place.

When it is out of balance, there is no consistency between breathing and heart rate. Their relationship is chaotic. Therefore, cardiac coherence is a good indicator of our mental, physical, and emotional state and our stress level. It tells us what our nervous response will be to minor frustrations or disappointments. When the autonomic nervous system is in balance, we have control over our impulses and emotions. We can choose how to respond without being overwhelmed by disproportionate and inappropriate emotional reactions. When it is imbalanced, it makes us more vulnerable to stress, physical and mental disorders.

Regular practice balances our autonomic nervous system and strengthens our capacity for recovery.

Consequences of sympathetic - parasympathetic imbalance:

One of the consequences of an imbalance in the vegetative system is a decrease in immune function.

Psychologist Sheldon Cohen of Carnegie-Mellon University and a British cold team have established a correlation between stress and the common cold. On a sample of people exposed to the cold virus, they observed that 27% of people with little or no stress caught the common cold against 47% of those who were stressed.

Even better, psychologist Bruce McEwan has shown that immune functions are impaired under stress that accelerates metastasis in people with cancer.

In addition, stress inhibits healing, as does depression, which slows it down.

What about yoga in all of this?

Yoga has a direct impact on our nervous system, digestive system, immune and endocrine system. Specific postures activate the main nerve of the parasympathetic nervous system inducing a calming and relaxing effect on both the mind and the body.

By practicing regularly, you can prevent stress-related disorders and learn to better manage it.

For more information on the nervous system, I invite you to read my first blog on yoga and the nervous system.