Introduction
Life is a mixture of good and bad phases. And all of us have to go through such phases. The majority of us get over the low phases or stress and become normal but for some, it’s really difficult to go back to normal life, even though events that pull us back to lows in our life have occurred months, years, or decades ago.
This article is all about my personal experience of facing stress and its side effects and how I recover from this bad phase. I considered a psychiatrist and even thought of medicines to reduce my anxiety because of the stress. But ultimately yoga came into life as a savior and helps me not only in recovering the stress but also teaches me how to spend a balanced, happy, and healthy life.
Primary Symptoms and Effects of Stress
I am categorizing these symptoms as primary symptoms of stress because these signs are an initial indicator of stress. Stress plays with your mind and thoughts and slowly engulfs your health. Therefore I call stress a silent killer.
1. Sleep deprivation
Due to elevated stress levels even at the end of the day when your body wants to rest your mind will be in unrest and it starts hampering your sleep. Sleep deprivation is the first symptom of elevated stress levels and continuous sleep deprivation will definitely enable the onset of depression and other health-related issues.
2. Anxiety
You’ll start worrying too much about the past or what will happen in the future, you may start thinking that whatever task or project you’re handling will go wrong. Even though you have everything going fine you’ll always feel as if things will fall apart, this continuous anxiety will soon become a habit and there will not be a single day when you’ll have a definite peace of mind.
3. Low energy
Of course, lack of sleep and continuous negative thoughts within a week’s time will make you really tired, you’ll find yourself distancing yourself away from the things that you really enjoy in life, such as going out meeting friends having a good time and even your physical activity will go down drastically.
4. Lack of focus
It’s an outcome of sleep deprivation and anxiety and low energy. You’ll stop focusing on the day-to-day activities and on the professional front, you’ll start seeing a direct outcome in terms of a decline in productivity, promptness, and proactiveness in solving problems and getting things done.
5. Hairfall, Acne, and skin problems
I always had super sensitive skin and increased stress levels led to more acne and hair fall. I did consult doctors and they pointed out increased weight and the onset of fatty liver but I knew that the root cause of all this was stress.
Secondary side effects of stress
1. Heart-related problems
Stress leads to heart-related disease or cardiovascular disease in men and women. Cardiovascular problems because of hypertension in men and women is mainly because of work-related stress and in women is mainly due to marital related. Stress is therefore not good for the heart, more stress more hypertension and more heart problem (1).
2. Diabetes
Stress is a potential contributor to chronic hyperglycemia in diabetes. Stress affects metabolic activity and stimulates the release of various hormones. Elevated hormone levels resulted in increased blood glucose levels. Stress-induced increases in glucose cannot be metabolized properly during diabetes (2).
3. Weak immunity
Of course, stress results in sleep deprivation and if the body does not get enough rest it will definitely weaken the immunity and thus welcomes many other diseases like a cough and cold and other problems.
4. Other stress-related diseases are as follows
Diseases: Hypertension, coronary artery diseases, cerebral stroke, cancer
Disorders: Neurophycrateric disorder, depressive disorders, and anxiety disorders
Body ace: tension, headache, back pain, neck pain
Gastrointestinal problems: peptic ulcers and ulcerative colitis
Hormonal disorder: Hyperthyroidism, Premenstrual syndromes
Allergic: eczema and asthma
Recovery
Even though you are going through a high level of stress you’ll never understand what’s happening to you and you’ll think as if it’s linked to a job or a really bad relationship. Unless you realize that stress and the way you are managing stress is the root cause of all the problems you may never be able to fix things at the base. You can go for medical treatment or counseling but a lot of times you’ll have to fix things your self and all the external help that you seek will only be able to suppress the symptoms waiting for next trigger to haunt you back in weeks, months or years after.
In my case I took the 4-month personal session with a yoga teacher and soon started seeing a lot of difference in myself I was no longer worried, my anxiety levels were low I was able to focus more and most importantly sleep well. Here is how I think yoga helped me in recovering from stress.
Yoga and How it controls the stress
1. Reducing Anxiety
Within a couple of days of my yoga sessions, I was more calm and relaxed. Yoga sessions include sets of pranayamas focusing on my breathing and asanas for flexibility.
The main reason that led to a reduction in anxiety was mindfulness. Earlier I was having trails of never-ending thoughts that kept me busy and draining my energy. But after doing 20 mins of pranayama like “Anulom vilom”, “Bhastrika” and “Bhamri” unwanted thoughts starts to diminish. I think this break gave me clarity about what really important and what is not.
Jal neti was another kriya that reduced acidity and let me sleep for long hours. Another suggestion given by the yoga guru that really helped me a lot was using badam rogan oil
Applying 2 drops of oil every night helps to get a good uninterrupted sleep.
2. Improving Sleep
During the elevated level of stress, I was on average sleeping for 4-5 Hours in a day with only 30 mins of deep sleep. But Yoga helps me reduce my anxiety level thus leading to better sleep. I could see myself getting close to 7 hours of sleep with 1.5 to 2 Hours of deep sleep.
3. Physical activity
Daily yoga routine includes asanas for better stamina. Asanas also improve my sitting and walking posture. Due to regular asanas, I no longer had pain in my lower back I could stand for multiple hours without breaking a sweat and I was feeling more accomplished. I’m not sure what’s the scientific reasons but I think post-yoga endorphins levels were high and I was happier and more active throughout the day.
4. Improved digestion
The biggest difference I could see after doing yoga was my digestion, I always had issues with the digestive system and every week I’ll wake up in the middle of the night for almost 4-5 days due to acidity or gas-related problems.
Post yoga I was no longer having acidity, “Kunja kriya” helped in balanced pitta in my body and I could put a full stop to all the acidity and gas-related problems.
5. Better Hair and Skin
“Kunjal kriya” helped me balance pitta in my body and within weeks time my acne was gone, and even the onset of grey hair was reduced.
I think learning yoga was the best investment that I had done in myself. I will encourage each one to learn simple pranayama and simple asanas. It helps you improve your posture build stamina and reduce stress.