Yoga, mental health and parenthood

[Rorourke]

Hi,
I'm interested in knowing whether yoga is now commonly used among parents to support their mental health ~ not just to get them fit.
If you do, please can you share how exactly yoga does supports your mental health. your own experiences and any resources that you use/recommend?

Why are you interested?

Hi Dorismargaret. I'm interested because I am a long-term yoga student and a parent. I can only find classes that cater for the body, rather than the mental health side of things specifically. I wondered if anyone here has felt like yoga has the potential to help them through tough times, and is having more success with their lessons.

Hi - I teach yoga and started practicing when I was a very stressed-out mum in a high pressure job with terminally ill parents. It helped me cope.

There are loads of teachers (including me) who emphasise the mental health benefits. In fact I think it's more important than the physical fitness side, although both are superb benefits.

Slightly OT, but my psychiatrist always recommends it for my ADHD, to the point he writes it as one of his recommendations in his letters to my GP, as if he's prescribing it, for help on the brain-calming/focus side of things.

I haven't really done it since before Covid as I prefer actual classes (and I would just get interrupted trying to do it at home!), but I would say for me it's about the taking time out to do something at a completely different pace from the rest of life. The classes I've been to have just been regular yoga, but I've never been to a class that didn't feel like it had a focus on the calming benefits to mental health.

I think the me are health benefits are embedded within yoga due to the focus on calmness and breathing. I can honestly say it’s the single thing that’s helped me through my divorce and being a single parent. On the days I need gentle classes, I do those. On others, I need to work my anxieties and irritation out of my system through much tougher strength-based yoga classes. I do solely hot yoga, which pushes me even further. On the whole, I’m a lot calmer and grounded, and my body feels stronger than it’s ever been. Just having that time to focus solely on myself is hugely beneficial as I have very little input from anyone else to take care of me.

@Rorourke

Hi, I'm interested in knowing whether yoga is now commonly used among parents to support their mental health ~ not just to get them fit. If you do, please can you share how exactly yoga does supports your mental health. your own experiences and any resources that you use/recommend?

I have never heard a more journalistically worded post.

I'm not exactly sure how it helps MH but I know that it does. Something about the sense of calm? The routine? Being in the body rather than in the mind? Rachel Brathen is a yoga teacher with a good online resource who has a focus on good mental health as well as the body.

OP, yes I use it for anxiety. I try to do a short 30 min session every morning and it gets rid of the sick feeling in my stomach. 3 or 4 times a week I do an evening yin yoga session, absolutely love the floaty feeling I get after yin. I have managed to reduce my anxiety meds to a minimum dose now. Any time in the day that I get an increased feeling of anxiety I drop into child pose and spend 5 mins just breathing there (providing I am somewhere private!). I originally started yoga classes for physical benefit but doing covid my anxiety hit the roof and I stopped obsessing about my physical shape and concentrated on my mental health.

My resources for yoga are YouTube and local class but I do find I get better tuition on YouTube, there are some excellent teachers on there.