Every day we are bombarded with challenges from different areas of our lives. We force ourselves to feel obligated to take on these challenges to solve or
fix them. If we are unsuccessful, we feel as if we have failed and stress ourselves out to work harder. Managing stress is all about taking charge and
being in control of your thoughts, emotions, schedule, and how you deal with your life problems. How you think and what your attitude is has a profound
influence on your overall emotional and physical well-being. Even though stress is an inevitable fact of life, there are ways to cope and manage it. The
practice of yoga, for example, is a great way to handle and manage your stress, and has added benefits to your overall health.

How Yoga Works

To identify your underlying stresses that are infiltrating your life, look closely at your habits, your attitude, and your excuses. Until you accept
responsibility for the role you play in creating or maintaining the frequency of the stress occurring in your life, you will not be able to relax.
Practicing yoga will help you mentally detach from the outside world, calming your mind. Through mediation, you will be able to reconnect with your inner
self and resources, leaving you empowered and in control of you and the life you wish to live.

Practiced for thousands of years in India, the notion of yoga is founded on the ideals that the mind and the body are one entity. By harvesting one asset
of yourself your mind you will experience improved mental and physical health. Through techniques such as breathing, meditation, and exercise, you
obtain the ability to function with high awareness by eliminating the stresses from your life.

Yoga will help you identify and manage the stresses by using the four A’s: avoid, alter, adapt and accept.

Avoid stress by prioritizing properly

Alter stress by changing a situation to suit you, but is still plausible for those around you

Adapt to stressful situations so that you don’t feel anxious or overwhelmed

Accept what you can’t change or what is out of your control

By implementing and applying these steps into your life, you’ll be able to control your feelings, and function happily and stress free.

How Yoga Benefits You

Training and practicing yoga benefits you in several ways. It will teach you to focus your mind to be still and tranquil. You will learn how to consciously
quiet your thoughts whenever you feel overwhelmed or anxious. Exercise, such as specific postures and poses, stretch your body, making you mentally and
physically flexible to adapt and accept situations that are out of your control. Doing yoga also prepares your mind and body for stressful challenges that
have been reoccurring and affecting your life, and gives you a clear perspective to solve these issues. The other benefits of yoga include:

Reduces stress and anxiety

Improves your sense of well-being

Helps lower blood pressure

Helps people with asthma breathe easier

Helps regulate your breathing and relaxes your body

Releases tension from large muscles groups, allowing refreshed blood, oxygen and other nutrients to flow throughout the body better

By detaching from the influence and needs of others and reconnecting with yourself, yoga will help you manage your stress. Learning to concentrate on the
sound of your breath as you inhale and exhale evenly and smoothly will help you effectively switch your attention from feeling anxious and stressed;
leaving you in a state of mind that is tranquil and calm. You are in control, you are relaxed. You are free.