RELEASING STRESS WITH YOGA

Articles In This Section:

· NOTHING MAGICAL IN YOGA

· YOUR BODY

· RELEASING STRESS WITH YOGA

· PURPOSE OF BREATHING

· PROER BREATHING

· DYNAMIC BREATHING EXERCISE

· METHODS OF RELAXATION

· YOGA DEVELOPED BY WATCHING ANIMALS

· IMPROVING THE BODY WITH YOGA

When the Greeks taught that the seat of the emotions was the liver, they were not far from the truth. When Shakespeare wrote, "I have no stomach for it," he knew without benefit of X-ray that one's feelings, likes, and dislikes were closely bound up with what went on in the region of the solar plexus. Today medical men ascertain the same thing with the use of barium and laboratory findings. But aren't they merely affirming, scientifically and accurately, what intuition and insight told wise men centuries ago?

In primitive man, as in animals, every adrenal upset served an immediate and useful purpose. Fear, alertness to danger, anger, hunger, the sex urge, all telegraphed their messages directly to the "stomach brain." The glands then sent their secretions into the blood stream, and the result was action. Primitive man, knowing fear, ran for safety. Knowing anger he struck out, or even killed. Feeling the urge to mate, he went wooing—even if he had to drag his bride home by the hair!

Today, with society and its laws sophisticated and complex, such simple cause-and-effect action and reaction is no longer possible. We have been taught to control, to hide, to sublimate, even to deny our emotions. Often we mask our impulses so completely we only know them translated into vague restlessness or sleeplessness or "butterflies in the stomach." They have become unrecognizable, but their basis remains the same: something—be it anger or fear or desire or pain—stimulates our endocrines; they respond, arouse our body, cause our heart to beat faster and our senses to quicken. But there is no physical outlet for all this turmoil. So the body turns upon itself. Literally, it is "spoiling" for action.

It is interesting that unlike our civilized consciousness the body and the subconscious have remained primitive. They cannot be easily fooled. Repressed emotions almost invariably become a weapon we turn against ourselves. If we worry, we lose weight—unless of course we happen to be among the compulsive eaters who gorge for consolation, in which case we gain alarmingly. If we get angry we find ourselves with an upset stomach, and if we stay angry long enough and frequently enough we may end up with colitis or ulcers. Overwhelmed by a sense of hopelessness, we may seek escape into asthma or tuberculosis or a state of shock. The list is endless. Each of us could add to it from personal observation.

Now add the problems imposed on us by our urban civilization: Our nervous system is called upon to work overtime because of the endless stimuli coming at us relentlessly from every direction. Among the tensions of city-living are street noise, radio, TV, the telephone, crowds, work deadlines, demands on every minute of our time, constant distraction and, of course, competitiveness. At best all this adds up to harassment. Often anxieties are set up simply because of the pace we try to keep up. Again the result is usually an upset of the delicate balance of hormone secretions which are at the very basis of our life force.