Self Love and Yoga

By Claudia Gulias, RYT 200

Radiance Yoga Studio

. https://radiance-yoga.net/

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Self Love and Yoga

This is the decade of practicing self love. We see more plus size models. Meghan Trainor celebrates her curves in her song, “I'm all about that base”.

Self love is fantastic and more power to all of us. Beauty comes in all shapes and sizes and confidence can be one of the most attractive qualities anyone can have. Let's just not let self-love deceive us and lead us down a self acceptance slippery slope of excessive weight gain and health problems. There's nothing beautiful about heart disease, nothing sexy about clogged arteries, and certainly nothing desirable about diabetes. Obesity is closely related to these health problems plus so many more. What do we do?

Yoga might just be the solution.

Yoga reduces stress. Stress causes us to stay in the sympathetic nervous system realm of “fight or flight” which releases cortisol. Cortisol is a stress hormone secreted by the adrenal gland. Over time, high levels may cause weight gain and high blood pressure, disrupt sleep, negatively impact mood, reduce energy and contribute to diabetes.

There are so many types of yoga that can help reduce stress, but have you ever heard of “restorative yoga”. It's the practice of being still yet conscious in what we call a “yogi sleep”. Our bodies inherently know how to move, but as stress creeps its way into our being, we often lose the ability to be still and feel calm.

The body has an amazing and natural ability to self heal but not when we are in a constant state of stress. Restorative yoga helps put the body and the mind back in harmony and balance. It's a perfect remedy for ultimate health and well being. As a bonus, a body in balance is less inclined to stay overweight.

All forms of yoga focus on breathing. Learning to breath teaches us to lower the diaphragm, which engages the pelvic floor muscles. This strengthens and builds lean muscle in the core that burns calories and holds in the stomach for a stronger, leaner core. Yoga also teaches us to breath better so that our bodies are cleansed of toxins that make us hold on to unwanted pounds.

Yoga flow classes tend to get our heart rates up which burns calories. Twisting postures compress, massage and squeeze organs related to the digestive system. This improves the metabolism and sends fresh blood to the digestive organs so that they run more efficiently.

A practice of learning to breath correctly, reduce stress, place our bodies in a kind fat burning zone and reintroduce the body and mind just may be the panacea for weight related problems. It can also teach us to be grateful for our body, amazed by what is capable of, and mindful of how important taking care of it is to our quality of life.

Self love is not only about accepting ourselves the way we look but also loving ourselves enough to make the necessary changes to become the best version of ourselves in body, mind and spirit.