With the sedentary nature of remote learning this semester and the stress caused by the coronavirus pandemic, self-care for our minds and bodies is crucial.
Because of this, San Jose State students might be facing new stressors and elevated symptoms of depression and anxiety.
So why not stretch out and release that mental and physical stress by practicing yoga?
According to The American Institute of Stress, depression and anxiety are two of the most common reasons why students seek mental health services and reports of these mental illnesses are only increasing.
But practicing yoga can help with alleviating some stress for students.
Yoga is a Hindu philosophy that helps suppress activity of the body, mind and will and can help people recognize its distinctions from their selves, according to Merriam-Webster.
The history of yoga is uncertain because early texts about the practice were written on palm leaves which can easily be damaged, destroyed or lost, according to Yoga Basics, a website that provides resources on yoga postures, meditation techniques, yoga therapy and history.
According to the website, some researchers believe that yoga dates back to more than 5,000 years ago.
“Other than sleeping for 10 hours, I would recommend yoga to students because it’s not hard to start, you get to self-reflect or give yourself a break and it gets your body moving,” psychology junior Isabela Paniagua said.
Paniagua’s aunt introduced her to yoga because of her aunt’s interest in personal growth, mental health and well being.
Paniagua said she usually finds the time for self-care, but this semester has been especially difficult because of her intense workload.
Sport psychology lecturer Karin Jeffery, who specializes in mindfulness and stress management at SJSU, teaches her students different yoga techniques and how beneficial they can be for the body.
“The first technique I like to teach is belly breathing or yoga breathing because it has multiple benefiting factors including delivering oxygen to the brain rather than the rest of the body,” Jeffery said.
Belly breathing in yoga is helpful in many ways because it is refreshing, restful and also creates a sense of well-being because it calms one’s nervous system, Yoga Intentional stated in an article.
According to the article, belly breathing “calms the nervous system, helps prevent psychosomatic disturbances, including panic episodes, and centers attention,” which can help individuals during busy days.
But because students in higher education are constantly feeling stressed, our bodies are continually releasing stress hormones that have an adverse effect on our bodies and minds.
“[Stress] triggers the parasympathetic nervous system which is the anti-stress response when we go into fight or flight mode,” Jeffery said. “So when our parasympathetic system is triggered, we can almost throw the switch the other way by simply slowing down and breathing.”
In other words, stress triggers the fight-or-flight response in our bodies, and by controlling our breathing, we can overcome this response in our bodies.
“When we start to think about our breathing we also forget whatever it was we were so stressed about, so if we focus on our breathing that also helps us relax,” Jeffrey said.
However, yoga which focuses on breath control may not be the only useful technique for managing stress.
“In terms of stress management, if you find that more gentle yoga is too gentle for you and you can’t focus, or your mind keeps going back to all the things you were stressed about, find something that is more active,” Jeffery said.
While yoga has many stress-relieving benefits, yoga can also help those trying to pursue a more active lifestyle.
Jeffery said there are a wide range of yoga classes available, but beginning yoga practitioners need to find what suits their bodies best because it is meant to improve our minds and bodies.
San Jose-based yoga instructor Sway Soturi specializes in vinyasa yoga, which she said is a style of yoga that focuses on strength conditioning practices.
Vinyasa yoga tends to help challenge people by focusing on different postures, which over time would allow them to have better posture in their life, Soturi said.
She said she started doing yoga because she was looking for a new way to lose weight, but found through her own observations that it also aided her mental health.
Soturi said she believes yoga will benefit people by aligning their bodies, minds, emotions, spirits and souls.
And with the ever-present stressors in our daily lives, students can be a key demographic.
“I do think yoga is beneficial to me because it gets my body moving which is important during virtual schooling,” Isabela Paniagua said.
