Yoga has an enormous wealth of benefits. It can help to unify the mind and body. It can improve your strength and flexibility. It burns calories without potentially impacting on your joints in the same way as running, jogging or more explosive sports. It introduces you to a new social circle of wonderful people who share your interests. And, of course it helps you to combat stress. In many ways, yoga is the perfect antidote to everything that’s wrong with 21st century living. We spend our says squashed behind desks, contorted into positions that the human body wasn’t meant to spend hours upon hours sustaining. We’re only now coming to realize just how damaging all this sitting can be for our bodies. It gives us an outlet to get away from our problems and stressors, and allows us to cleanse the mind and the body. It can even help us to better deal with a range of chronic diseases.

There are many reasons why people are turning to yoga studios today, but one of the most commonly recurring is the fact that they need a helping hand with their stress management. The link between yoga and stress relief is extremely well documented (it’s not like yoga hasn’t been around for 5,000 years), and doctors have long recommended yoga for its stress relieving properties. But while it’s often lauded as a great way to relieve stress, what happens when your stress starts to impact on your yoga game?

How stress can impact your performance in yoga

If we bring too much of our stress into the hatha with us, it can make our wonderful hobby feel like an arduous slog. Yoga is all about finding clarity and listening to your body. When we are thinking too much about our stressors, it can distract us from what we’re doing, and prevent us from the feeling of satisfaction that we usually feel when sinking into an asana.

Of course, when we carry stress into the studio, we don’t just keep it in our minds. We carry it all around our bodies. And that can be extremely trying when we’re trying to engage with our favourite hobby. It can stiffen the muscles, exacerbate joint pain and make it harder to get the feeling of satisfaction that sinking into an asana usually brings us.

While our yoga classes are designed to help us relieve stress, what happened when we find that our classes don’t bring us the relief we seek? What happens when stress throws us of our yoga game and makes an experience that should be calming and satisfying abjectly frustrating?

What do you do to prevent stress from impacting on the one thing that’s supposed to relieve it?

Here we’ll look at some little lifestyle changes that may help you to better deal with your stress and prevent it from impinging on your progress in the studio- keeping you from being all that you can be.

Revisit your diet

So many of the problems with our 21st century lifestyles are compounded by our addiction to processed foods. We get it. You’re busy, you’re overworked, and when hunger strikes all that’s within quick and easy reach are the fatty, sugary, salty treats of the vending machine or the nearby fast food place. But our bodies need food. They don’t need highly refined food-like substances.

Think about everything you’ve eaten over the past few months. If it was almost all beige, you’re likely to have a problem. Processed foods can make us feel bloated, robbing us of the ability to enjoy living in our bodies. Furthermore, they are linked to increased inflammatory response in the body, and this is at the heart of some of our most dangerous chronic diseases, as well as painful inflammatory conditions like arthritis.

If you’ve been feeling like your stress is exacerbated by feeling less than comfortable in your own body, this is sure to curtail your progress. Ditch the processed foods and try taking the time to prepare and eat more fresh veggies, fruits and other goodness.

Consider herbal supplements if you need a helping hand

You know that you need a little extra helping hand dealing with your stress. But the idea of turning to prescription meds is, quite understandably, not appealing in the least to you. Fortunately, there is a better way. The natural world is full of stress-relieving plants that have been engineered into effective supplements from Penguin CBD oil to St. John’s Wort and Valerian root. Even if you have a good diet, being able to supplement it with some carefully chosen plant-based aides may be the perfect way to prevent stress from impacting on your performance.

Ditch the caffeine

Yes, we know, coffee is life. But if you really love the taste, aroma and warming sensation that coffee gives you in the morning, you can enjoy all of that without the caffeine kick. There was a time when decaffeinated coffee was an insult to coffee lovers. But now, in an age where it’s easier and more affordable than ever to get good decaff, there’s no reason not to at least try making the switch.

Not only does an over-reliance on caffeine potentially increase stress and anxiety, making you more jittery, it can actually make you more tired and sluggish between espresso shots. As a result you’re less likely to find your yoga sessions satisfying, or even attend.

Make time to sleep

Of course, stress can be the antithesis of restful sleep just as it can be the antithesis of satisfying yoga. However, it’s while you’re asleep that your body recovers and repairs itself from the physical damage caused by stress. As such, you owe it to yourself to try and get at least 7 hours every night. Try having a hot bath an hour before your ideal bed time. Not only will it help you to feel sleepy, it will lower your core temperature and prevent overheating in the night.

Of course, you also need to be able to confront the sources of your stress. You may not be able to completely conquer it overnight. But you should at least go to bed every night confident that you’ve done all you can to address the things that cause you stress. Thereby preventing them from weighing too heavily on your mind.