Coping with anxiety

Daily yoga practice has brought about many changes in my life.  I've experienced many physical benefits (like my pants fitting better, better digestion, and less frequent sickness), but the mental benefits are what surprise me most.

Ever since I was little I have had a fear of throwing up.  Me throwing up.  A stranger throwing up.  Hearing someone throw up.  Seeing it.  Thinking about it.  Ugh.  Honestly, I cringe even writing the words "throw up."  My family always said I had a "Barf Radar," because I have a sixth sense about vomit.  I always seem to know beforehand when someone is going to hurl, and I would run and hide as quickly as I could.

Having children is NOT a vomit-free job.  It's pretty inevitable that you will someday be cleaning up throw-up in the middle of the night...multiple times.  When I had my first child, I was panic stricken.  I'm not kidding--- moments after giving birth, I started freaking out about the inevitability of puke.  It strikes fear into my heart.  I have no idea why.  I think that's the definition of a phobia, right?

Anyway, the point of all of this is that when my son used to get sick (even just a runny nose and cough), I would tense up.  I'd start trembling so badly I couldn't hold a cup.  My bowels would start churning and I'd get stress-diarrhea. I was so anxious and scared I would make myself sick.  The possibility of him maybe throwing up was too much for me!  I would spend the entire night awake and tensed.

Since I've started a daily yoga practice I find that I have space in my mind to step back from any situation before I react.  So when my children get sick now (actual throw-up sick), and I start to feel myself getting anxious, I breathe.  I'm able to look at the situation and see that there is no physical threat here.  It is a "perceived threat," and my body is reacting as if it were in danger.  All of a sudden I can stop the anxiety in its tracks.  I can breathe it away and move forward with the mantra, "I am safe."

Yoga is a physical practice that guides our bodies into situations of "stress" and teaches us to breathe through the stress.  Relax into it.  As we move into different asanas we are teaching our bodies to move into stress and find peace.

In an article published in her teaching manual, Syl Carson, founder of Bodhi Yoga, says, "In cultivating a yoga practice we teach our bodies how to move into perceived stress, 'playing the edges' of pain, discomfort and opening.  Outwardly this may look like simply a physical movement, however; the process is equally mental as we face our own internal fear and control issues" (Yoga and the Physiology of Stress)

Anxiety has always been a part of my life, and it will probably always be a part of my life.  My Vata constitution makes me prone to anxiety if I'm out of balance.  Thankfully yoga is a simple exercise in bringing me back to earth.  It gives me the ability to recognize times of stress and not allow them to carry me off into fits of anxiety.