How Stress Impacts the Body

Before understanding how yoga can be beneficial to athletes and non-athletes alike, let us briefly introduce how the human body has evolved to respond to stress. According to Hans Selye, there are different stages of stress and adaptation; the way in which you respond to stress at each stage has a huge impact on your body. The first stage is the alarm stage, where a specific event causes your body to fight, flight, or freeze. This event can be a major life event, such as losing a loved one, or it can be a specific event in a particular activity, such as your tennis opponent serving up a move that you didn’t anticipate. In an attempt to return to homeostasis, the body can respond in one of two ways after the alarm stage: the body can either resist or adapt. In the resistance stage, your body allocates more resources toward preparing your body to resist any potential harm. This causes your body to freeze and diminishes your cognitive capacity, leaving you with little ability to effectively problem solve. Resistance tends to occur when we don’t take a moment to breathe and regain control of our bodies and minds. In the adaptation stage, on the other hand, your body and mind remain calm, requiring less resource re-allocation. This, essentially, frees up your mind so you are better able to adapt to the novel situation. If you resist, you are more likely to move into what is known as the ‘exhaustion stage’. If unimpeded, the exhaustion stage can lead to a condition known as ‘chronic fatigue’, which can wreak havoc on the body and cause long term health issues. Chronic fatigue is linked to chronic inflammation of the body, which has been known to contribute to numerous diseases. Yoga has been shown to improve how we respond to stress, both in life and in situations requiring us to “stay on our game”. With its incorporation of pranayama, or yoga breathing, the mindfulness component of yoga, and the physical resilience that it fosters, yoga is the perfect way to make us more resilient and adaptable, even in the face of high stress or physically demanding tasks.

Physical Benefits of Yoga

Increased Range of Motion, Flexibility, and Mobility

Yoga has been shown to improve range of motion, flexibility, and mobility, all of which are vital in maintaining superior performance. Before we dive in, let’s define these three concepts. First, range of motion is the distance your joints can move freely in any direction without resulting in pain. Flexibility refers to the ability to bend with ease without breaking. Finally, mobility is the ability to move without restriction. Regardless of your fitness goals, all three of these are essential in maintaining optimal physical health. If you are an athlete, maintaining all three of these things is exceptionally important. Take this example: say you are a marathon runner, and you have limited range of motion, flexibility, and mobility. These limitations may cause you to over-rely on muscles that are intended to merely support your primary running muscles. This may, in turn, inhibit the use of the primary muscles that are intended to be the predominant muscles utilized in running. Over time, this type of compensation creates an imbalance in your body and can lead to injury, both in the short term and in the long term. Failing to address such imbalances can cause your body to grow accustomed to moving inappropriately, which can lead to sustained damage and injury. With its arsenal of yoga postures and emphasis on proper alignment, yoga provides you with a chance to increase your range of motion, flexibility, and mobility in a manner that is safe and beneficial for your body. Speaking of proper alignment, let us move to the next physical benefit of adding yoga to your current fitness regimen.

Enhanced Bodily Awareness

Because athletes and experts alike tend to automatize their movements in their respective activities, present moment bodily awareness may be less prevalent in these groups. This means that, if a person is not engaging in their activity mindfully and an injury occurs, they may not notice discomfort in the heat of the moment. This may cause the person to continue performing in a manner that will contribute to sustained injury. If you’ve ever known someone who has torn their meniscus while running or playing basketball, they may have told you that they weren’t even aware that their meniscus had been torn. They may also have told you that their meniscus took a long time to heal. This is because the meniscus doesn’t have direct blood supply or nerve interaction, making it more difficult to notice in the heat of an activity. This is also why it takes so long for the meniscus to heal. Yoga increases body awareness and proprioception, which helps a person become more attuned to what is going in their bodies and in the environment in each moment. In the practice of yoga, we learn to become more aware of differing sensations in parts of our bodies. For example, when doing a forward fold in yoga, you may notice that your right hamstring is much tighter than your left hamstring. This type of awareness is vital in all fitness domains because it allows you to tend to any maladaptive overreliance in your body before chronic injury occurs. Such knowledge can give you a chance to increase muscle activation and functional movement on a part of your body that is imbalanced. This is the type of balance that you need to perform your very best in the long run.

Accelerated Muscle Recovery

Yoga has also been shown to enhance and speed up muscle recovery. It does so by increasing blood flow to the muscles that have just been activated in your previous activity. While stress on the body, such as the stress we experience in vigorous physical exercise, is beneficial for the body, it also results in a depletion of energy in both the muscles and the mind immediately following the stressful activity. This is why rest and recovery are essential in every domain. Muscle gains resulting from a vigorous workout occur during the rest and recovery phase of your workout. Your body must go through this process before it can return to its optimal state, which takes anywhere from 2-7 days. If you’re an athlete, you likely want to get back to your strongest self as quickly as possible. Fatigued muscles will inevitably hinder your performance so, as an athlete, speeding up the healing process is something that may be of great interest to you. While every athlete likely understands the importance of rest and recovery, there may be less known about the finding that yoga can actually speed up recovery and is better than rest alone. Even if you aren’t an athlete, recovery is beneficial for anyone who wants to feel better (isn’t that all of us?).

Proper Core Engagement

Learning how to engage your core properly is essential in preventing injury. You may spend years in the gym working on your ‘abs’ but never really learn to engage your core properly. In yoga, we learn to activate our various bandhas, which are areas in the body that we learn to engage to maintain stability in practicing asanas. One of the bandhas that is commonly used is called the Uddiyana Bandha. The Uddiyana Bandha, which is known as ‘the core lock’, teaches you to properly engage your core so that your spine is protected. If you’ve ever heard the phrases “sink your navel toward your spine” or “knit your ribs in” in a yoga class, you have experienced instruction on engaging your Uddiyana Bandha. This type of core engagement is useful in all aspects of life, both on and off the mat and in and out of the gym. For example, if you are a new mother who recently gave birth and are experiencing a weakness in your core, engagement of the Uddiyana Bandha can help you learn to engage your core properly so you can regain strength in the core muscles that were weakened during pregnancy. Engaging your core properly can also prevent you from experiencing injury in your lower back from lifting a heavy object. The core muscles include more than just your exterior ab muscles (such as the ones that make up the beautiful six-packs we often see in fitness magazines), they also include deep muscles, such as the transverse abdominis, that, while not as aesthetic, help to support your spine. If you’ve experienced diastasis recti after having a baby (which causes your stomach muscles to separate), proper engagement of the transverse abdominis can help your bring your stomach muscles back together (did someone say, bikini season?). By learning to engage your Uddiyana Bandha properly, you can both protect your spine and build a stronger core. In addition to engagement of the Uddiyana Bandha, the utilization of diaphragmatic breathing in yoga can also help you to engage your core properly. Because diaphragmatic breathing results in increased intra-abdominal pressure, this type of breathing is essential in protecting your core, especially when lifting heavy objects.

Regulate Nervous System

As we discussed earlier, the parasympathetic nervous system is essential for returning your body back to its baseline. While there are several methods you can employ for accessing your parasympathetic nervous system, yoga is an excellent way to get your parasympathetic nervous system back online. There are three components of yoga that make it one of the best ways to regulate your nervous system. The first is the movement aspect. Moving your body all at once is one of the most effective ways to regulate your nervous system when you are in a state of fight or flight. The second component is the mindfulness aspect, which teaches you to notice moment to moment fluctuations of the mind through a lens of nonjudgment. Because your mind and body work together as a system, when your mind is in a state of panic, your body releases all sorts of chemicals to prepare you to fight or flight. While this neuro-physical reaction contributed to the survival of our ancestors, it can get in the way of performing our very best in these modern times. In the short term, an aggravated nervous system can cause your body to shut down, leaving you with little cognitive resources to allocate toward making sound decisions. In the long term, having an unregulated nervous system can lead to disease, as we mentioned previously. The mindfulness component of yoga teaches you to use your higher cognitive processes to regulate your nervous system. With practice, this type of mental training can enhance your mental clarity, so you are better able to respond to high stake situations, both physically and mentally. The third component of yoga that makes it the best for regulating the nervous system is the breathing aspect of yoga, or pranayama. The Vagus Nerve, which helps to regulate the nervous system and has been linked to healthy biological functioning, is stimulated when you exhale. There are many ways to regulate breathing that aren’t related to yoga or pranayama and, thus, you don’t necessarily need to do yoga to stimulate the Vagus Nerve. However, if you’ve ever practiced pranayama in yoga, you probably know how different it is from regular controlled breathing. The way in which movement is linked to breath in the practice of yoga makes effective breathing techniques more accessible and less anxiety inducing. With movement, mindfulness, and breathing as the core tenants of yoga, we think yoga is one of the best ways to regulate your nervous system. As we’ve mentioned throughout the article, regulating your nervous system is vital for both your physical and mental health. This seems like a good place to transition into the mental benefits of yoga that will help you to be your best self!

Mental Benefits of Adding Yoga

Myelination

If you are an athlete or do any other type of activity that requires a certain level of ‘performance’ on your part (yes, this includes giving a presentation at work), you could benefit greatly from the mental benefits of yoga that can help to keep you sharp and on your game. If you’ve ever been stumped by an opponent in your sport (or by an obnoxious co-worker who is always trying to one-up you), how you react makes all the difference in the world in determining whether you will be triumphant. Myelination is a process that occurs neurochemically in the circuitry systems of the human brain and plays a major role in decision-making. An oversimplified explanation of myelination is this: the more you practice something and prime yourself for all possible outcomes in a given situation, the more prepared you will be in making effective decisions in real time; this is all thanks to the process of myelination. The human brain is highly efficient; myelination is part of the brain’s efficiency process. Myelination occurs in the brain to help make problem solving more efficient and readily available. It is typically highly specialized, meaning that your brain is hard wired to respond optimally in your particular area of expertise. Myelination, which is linked to enhanced learning, requires a calm, alert, and receptive mind. Yoga helps to cultivate a calm and present mind that is open to receiving information, which is necessary for myelination to occur. There are some diseases that are related to reduced myelination, such as multiple sclerosis. Research has shown that yoga has been an effective adjunct treatment in managing multiple sclerosis, indicating that yoga may have some impact on the process of myelination. Athletes and experts alike should strive to increase their myelination because it helps to make them a more efficient and effective performer in their respective fields, even when the stakes are high.

Reduce Performance Anxiety and Improve Self Esteem

Yoga has also been shown to reduce performance anxiety, which is especially important for athletes. Performance anxiety has been shown to thwart athletic performance. This is because focusing on negative emotions and thoughts requires a lot of cognitive resources and, thus, takes away from one’s ability to devote such resources to performing well. In addition to depleting cognitive resources, your body will respond to anxiety by allocating biological resources to the parts of your body that will assist you in engaging in either “fight” or “flight”. This adaptive role of the human body, which was once helpful in increasing the likelihood of individual survival, requires energy and, thus, takes away from your ability to perform optimally. If you’ve ever heard of the term “choking” in sport, you are aware of such phenomenon. The mindfulness aspect of yoga can help reduce performance anxiety because it teaches a person to simply notice negative emotions without assigning judgment to such emotions. This, essentially, allows such thoughts to flow in and out of consciousness with less impact on one’s ability to perform. Research has also shown that yoga is linked to improved self-esteem. Self-esteem is directly linked to performance because self-esteem can trigger or exacerbate performance anxiety. This can create a vicious cycle that can negatively affect someone’s performance in both the short term and in the long run. Yoga helps you to cultivate a sense of self-compassion, acceptance, present moment awareness, and may also help you to adopt a non-judgmental approach in recognizing your transient thoughts. All of this will help to improve your performance, both on and off the field.

Mindfulness and Flow

Flow has been described as the “the experience of total involvement in what one is doing. The experience of flow is vital in performing your very best. In a state of flow, you are literally “giving it your all”. The Mindful Acceptance Commitment (MAC) is one of the most heavily researched mindfulness interventions in sport and is growing in its popularity. It has been shown that effective mindfulness practices can help someone achieve a state of flow. This is especially important when your goal is to maintain a state of flow in a high-pressure environment. When the pressure is high, your likelihood of being distracted by negative, anxious, or over analytical thoughts increases. When you are performing in a high-pressure environment, being distracted by such thoughts can have greater consequences than when you are performing in a low-pressure environment. By practicing mindfulness on a regular basis, your brain will be more primed to engage in mindfulness when the stakes are high, which will help you achieve flow in such states. As we have discussed, mindfulness is a core component of yoga. A regular yoga practice can help you to cultivate a capacity to engage in mindfulness, even when under intense pressure. Whether you are an athlete, have a stressful job, or maintain a chaotic household (uh, most of us), achieving flow will help you!

How you Structure your Yoga Sessions Matters

Now that we have discussed all the benefits of yoga, it’s important to touch upon the necessity of determining how you structure your yoga sessions. If life is your sport and yoga is your primary physical activity, you may have more flexibility (pun intended) in how you structure your yoga sessions. However, if your physical activities go beyond yoga and, depending on your fitness goals, the way in which you structure your yoga sessions needs to be considered. If flexibility is important for your sport or activity, yoga before working out may be beneficial. However, your yoga session in such a case should be shorter in duration. On the other hand, if your activity requires strength or endurance, you are better off scheduling your yoga class for after your workout or for another day. The type of yoga you add to your fitness regimen also plays a role when deciding how to structure your yoga around your workouts. Some styles of yoga are slower and consist of stretching of a more static nature, where poses are held for longer periods of time. Yin yoga, restorative yoga, and slow flow yoga are just a few styles of yoga that may fall under this category. However, some styles of yoga are comprised of more dynamic movement where the movement is more fast paced and where the poses are held for less time than in static stretching styles of yoga. Vinyasa and power yoga sometimes fall under this category. As an athlete, or even sole yoga practitioner, it’s important to understand the difference between static stretching and dynamic movement. Static stretching typically involves moving a part of your body to the limits of its range of motion. Such movement is acute and typically results in increased flexibility in the musculotendinous component of the body part in which you are stretching. This type of movement is important for increasing flexibility and range of motion in the long run. However, in the short term, it can lead to a temporary decease in strength (don’t worry, the strength will come back) and could hinder performance in the short term. Dynamic movement, on the other hand, consists of larger amplitude movements that are held for shorter periods of time. The purpose of dynamic warm-ups is to increase your body’s internal temperature, which helps prepare your muscles to engage at their highest capacity. Here is an example of a practical application of the concepts we just discussed: say you run a marathon over the weekend. Your body will benefit greatly from adding a restorative or slow flow class to, say, the Monday after your weekend marathon. Doing a restorative or slow flow class before your marathon on the same day may actually hinder your performance. However, doing some sun salutations prior to your race may be beneficial in warming up your muscles.

Bottom Line: Yoga Improves Performance

Now that we’ve inundated your brain with all sorts of information, lets get to the point: yoga will improve your performance, regardless of your sport or activity. If you want to stay mentally sharp, yoga can help. If you want to protect your muscles from injury, yoga can help. If you want to learn to regulate your nervous system, yoga can help. So, while your schedule may be demanding, finding time to include yoga will only benefit you, both in the short term and in the long run. Remember, you don’t have to fit a certain narrative to start practicing yoga; yoga is for everyone!