Although not talked about often the yoga practice is aimed at improving mental health.
Although not talked about often the yoga practice is aimed at improving mental health.
Opinion by Danielle Harper
Danielle Harper is a health and wellness expert who hails from Los Angeles. In addition to a BSc in Neuroscience, Danielle is a certified Gyrotonic pilates and yoga teacher and is the founder of Alma Studio in Havelock North.
OPINION
When thinking about the pillars of health, physical practices usually are top of mind. Get your cardio in. Lift heavy things. Sleep well. Dunk yourself in cold water. Expose yourself to heat. Eat your vegetables. Slather this potion on your face. Drink that potion for your gut. Breathe well.
Infrequently, and almost an afterthought, the directive to meditate or seek positive social connections will get added to the list.
While mental health is often left as an afterthought in health circles, the truth is the brain is the target of all those other physical practices.
Cardio cleans and oxygenates your blood and increases brain-derived neurotrophic factor – which is really good for your brain. Ice baths and saunas release surges of dopamine and other neurotransmitters, elevating your mood and energy levels. The foods we consume constantly alter our brain chemistry for better or worse.
American-born yoga instructor and ALMA studio founder Danielle Harper brings LA wellness vibes to Hawke's Bay.
Just as you can improve your physical health through exercise, commitment, and determination, you can also actively improve your mental health with simple attitude adjustments and self-worth practices.
Achieving gains in your mental health starts with building a rock-solid foundation of self-esteem.
Speaking your truth is one of the best “drills” to build and flex the self-esteem muscle. When you are young, it is often hard to stand up for yourself and tell hard truths.
However, when you do, you let people around you know which behaviours you will accept from them and which ones you find intolerable. By setting boundaries, you acknowledge your own self-worth.
Having hard conversations is an incredibly effective way to build a solid mental health foundation. Hard conversations are, well, hard.
Sometimes, they are hard because, despite being true, you know you are saying something that will hurt the listener. Sometimes, you are conveying information that disappoints them or lets them know where they stand in a social or work situation that doesn’t match their expectations.
No matter why it is hard, these conversations build resilience within yourself and teach you your worth within a dynamic social structure.
One of the things I appreciate about the yoga asana practice is that it is a physical practice that can be applied to any challenging situation.
Speaking our truth is one of the most empowering acts of self-love, keeping our lives aligned with our boundaries.
It is a dress rehearsal for the difficult moments in life. One who partakes in the yoga practice has already proved to themselves that they can do hard things. The practice has built resilience and strength that is transferable to other difficult situations in life.
Aside from being a training ground for doing hard things, the yoga practice provides the practitioner with tools to use in the hard moments of life, like maintaining composure through difficulty, keeping the breath smooth and even, and the transferable confidence of having accomplished difficult things in the past.
Being true to oneself is also a large part of the yoga practice that parallels building our self-esteem in other facets of life. You will never achieve the difficult poses in yoga until you are ready to be honest with yourself.
This means that until you accept your weaknesses and are willing to bring them out into the open to work on them, you will not achieve anything of significance. Similarly, building a strong mind requires you to speak your truth without fear of the outcome.
Speaking your truth sets you on the right path, whereas pretending that everything will be okay if you swallow your feelings one more time just perpetuates the problem and diminishes your self-esteem.
Knowing one’s worth is a key muscle to practise flexing by being honest with oneself and with others about where you stand and what you will tolerate. This honesty and self-acceptance are essential to your mental wellbeing – it is, in fact, the key to your liberation.
