Managing stress in life through Yoga during COVID19
“When you relax yourself, you let go your tensions. If you let tensions be inside you, what happens is, stagnancy develops. Stagnant water weaves disease and stagnant thoughts weaves even worse.” — Dr. Ananda
Q. What Yoga practices can help the youth today to be healthy and focused?
A. The Yoga/ Sadhana/ Pranayama is very important for youth, especially now. They should practice Surya Namaskara. Surya Namaskara should become part and parcel of all youths because this would give them functionality of all body system and would enhance the cardiovascular system. It will also boost the breathing system, endocrine system and make nervous system better.
The second that should be in practice is Nadi Shuddhi or Nadi Shodhana, which is a breathing factor, a type of Pranayama which help to balance right and left brain. Right brain is all our artistic creativity and left brain is all quantitative aspect like calculation and rationality. Some people also call Nadi shuddhi as Anulom Viloma.
The third one is Yoga Nidra. It is a stress reliever. Especially when there is COVID like pandemic and, nobody knows for what is going to happen of education and jobs, stresses are frequent. And to reduce it, relaxation is a must. If there is a problem in the body, healing will occur only when the person is relaxing and is stress-free.
Q. How can Yoga help in improving immunity, especially during the COVID pandemic?
A. Immune system is related to the stress. The more stressed we are, less the immune system will work. This stress is largely based on fear. So, Yoga is based on reducing stress and fear. The moment you start thinking, “Oh my god it’s going to happen, I will suffer!” then your immune system starts going down. So, to be able to say “I will do my best!” and maintaining physical distancing and hand washing can work. There are thousands of micro-organisms in our environment but they don’t affect us because our immune system is good.
So to strengthen the immune system one needs to reduce stress and be healthy. Intake of healthy food (Vitamins and Minerals because they are the one to enhance the immunity) and healthy activities can be of help. In Yoga Sadhana, we say it Achar, Vichar, Aahar, Vihar and Vyavahar. By understanding that we are strong human beings, and that we should not get swayed by all the negativities that are prevailing outside, we can definitely help ourselves.
Q. How can we balance our Work and Leisure time?
A. See basically what has to be done is one has to set a mental schedule and understand that work is not the goal of life. If you are working for 8 hours, 16 hours is the rest hours in a day. Now, if you sleep for 8 hours (it is a good idea), you have 8 hours for rest of your activities, in which at least 2 hours you should keep for your own self. It is the time when you are able to do the activities which you enjoy. You can go for a walk, sing, dance, go to the beach or read a book. Whatever you do, it is very important that you keep some time for self.
So, work-related activities, 8 hrs; sleep-related activities, 8 hours and in left 8 hours, 2 hrs should be for self. It will bring balance in your life and you can definitely balance other stuffs much better. Time-management is the key here. You have to keep in mind that you are not pushing yourself too much because the more you push, the more you burn out and the more you burn out, you will be of no use to anybody. So, it is very important to have a good sense of balance in life.
This interview was first published in Global Youth Voice and can be viewed at https://www.globalyouthvoice.com/dr-ananda-balyogi-bhavanani
