Prior to the middle of the 20th century the word “stress” barely registered in the national vocabulary. Now, 50 years later, there’s a conversation you hear so often, it’s almost a chorus: You ask a friend, “How are you?” and she replies, “I’m OK, but I’m feeling a little stressed.”
According to the American Psychological Association’s 2011 Stress in America survey “year after year Americans report extreme stress (22 percent in 2011) – on an 8, 9 or 10 point scale where 1 is little or no stress and 10 is a great deal of stress. And more than half of Americans reported personal health problems (53%) as a source of stress.”
It was not until the middle of the 20th century that physiologist Hans Selye labeled our reaction to life’s challenges with a simple word: stress. Stress is associated with over activation of the sympathetic nervous system (SNS), the part of the autonomic nervous system that responds to fight, flight, freeze reactions when the organism encounters a threat to its survival. So for example when someone cuts us off on the highway or our boss yells at us or we receive an unfriendly letter from the IRS, the sympathetic nervous system is activated – our heart races, digestion stops, mouth gets dry, our breathing increases and blood sugar rises. Moreover we live in a culture that prizes the excitement, aggressiveness, high stress work life, pace and general intensity that is fueled by the SNS.
The SNS has a very useful evolutionary function as it ensured our survival over generations. Wooly mammoths and other strange beasts would have eaten us all had we not biologically evolved the sophisticated machinery central to our nervous systems that enabled us to fight, flee or freeze in unfriendly situations. The problem is that chronic SNS activation associated with our fast paced lifestyles wears and tears at our bodies increasing the risk of gastrointestinal ailments such as ulcers, colitis and constipation, weakening the bodies immune defenses, increasing the risk of type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular ailments such as heart attacks.
According to neuropsychologist Dr. Rick Hanson, “the parasympathetic (PNS) and sympathetic nervous systems work in balance with each other much like the brakes and the gas pedal of a car.” The PNS handles disengagement from the external environment, recovery from stressful experiences, and returning the body back to balance. If the SNS is for “fight and flight”, the parasympathetic nervous system helps one “rest and digest”. Conscious attention to the parasympathetic system brings the body back to center.
Enter Restorative Yoga
The importance of relaxation and self-regulation practice is growing exponentially as times where stress, and the effects of stress, has reached heightened states. Restorative yoga is a powerful healing practice that deepens our relationship to stillness and silence, a necessary counterpoint to our busy active lives. Using props (blocks, blankets, cushions, bolsters) to support the body in positions of ease, postures are held for five to ten minutes without effort or force. Consciously resting offers the body an opportunity to renew and heal by stimulating the parasympathetic nervous system, the body’s natural relaxation response.
Yoga teacher Judith Hanson Lasater concludes, “during deep relaxation, all the organ systems of the body are benefited, and a few of the measurable results of deep relaxation are the reduction of blood pressure, serum triglycerides and blood sugar levels in the blood, the increase of the “good cholesterol” levels, as well as improvement in digestion, fertility, elimination, the reduction of muscle tension, insomnia and generalized fatigue. When you stop agitating it, the body starts to repair itself.”
[…] The Healing Power of Restorative Yoga (rightmindprograms.wordpress.com) […]
[…] The Healing Power of Restorative Yoga (rightmindprograms.wordpress.com) […]
I really enjoyed browsing your website. Great job. Your information was interesting and easy to read.
Thanks!
You connects dots of what I read about mindfulness, neurobiology, yoga..you deepened my understanding of mind-body connection. Thanks!
Thanks to my father who informed me on the topic of this web site, this webpage is really amazing.