Yoga for Anger Management
Almost all of us experience anger at some point or the other. Rather than get into a monologue of why anger occurs, I will try to touch upon why we should overcome it and how it can be done.
Why should anger be overcome?
Anger destroys the peace of mind: One constantly undergoes mental turmoil, uneasiness and frustration when anger is experienced. This disturbed mind is akin to a rudderless boat in a stormy ocean, being tossed around from place to place without it being able to focus on the task or destination ahead.
Anger is terrible for health: Besides symptoms of high blood pressure, ulceration etc., anger is invariably accompanied by stress, which is often referred to as the silent killer. The medical community is also coming around to the view that stress forms the basis of about 90% of all health disorders.
Anger causes hurt: Besides hurting the person whom it is targeted at (emotionally or physically), anger can boomerang causing an even deeper and longer lasting self-hurt in the form of repentance and remorse. Moreover, acts of anger invariably result in resentment and portray you as a highly egoistic person.
There may be many more ‘incentives’ to overcome anger but the above are enough to make you give a serious shot at tackling the problem.
Conventional remedies
Commonly preached remedies focus on the following ways of ‘curing’ anger
Suppression: Quick-fix ways like “take a deep breath unto the count of 10″ etc. come under this category. These, only provide a temporary respite (if at all). Honestly, these methods actually undermine our intelligence. As if to say, our mind is going to be taken in by some kind of breath control gimmick!
Expression: I was told that, in Japan, there is a concept of ’stress bars’ where you can take out your anger, frustration and stress by throwing objects and redeeming your frustration through these physical acts. These ‘pseudo’ expressive techniques can seldom be successful, as they do not take into account the complexity of the mind.
Diversion: Involving yourself in an activity that keeps you away from the source of anger is often suggested as a way out. However, more likely than not, the ‘ignored’ anger will return with a greater vengeance in due course.
In fact, suppression and diversion can be compared to the indiscriminate filling of your grocery bag (the mind) with objects. Up to a point, it is fine; however, there will come a point, where the bag can hold no more and will ’snap’ destroying the bag completely as well as everything around. Similarly, these are dangerous techniques that can result in irreparable damage to your brain.
The way out
Various spiritual leaders and faiths such as Buddhism, show us a way out. Significantly, yoga teachings provide similar solutions and also show the way to make these solutions a part of our personality.
The first step at anger management is - do not resist and do not ignore the cause of anger. Experience it fully.
What do we mean? It implies that one should develop an attitude of an observer or a witness. Learn to change your role from being the subject to becoming a bystander. See how the anger is operating. See what it is doing to your mind and how. When faced by an anger causing action, immediately get into the mode of exploring and rationalizing:
* Why am I getting irritated?
* What kind of thought pattern is forming in my mind as a consequence of this action?
* Why is it that I am feeling like this?
Continue to go deeper and deeper with the “whys” and “more whys”.
When you start doing this, two things start happening:
You start seeing the deeper ’subconscious’ elements that form the foundation of your conscious mind. It is these elements that shape your personality without you even realizing it. Just like you can see the bottom of the pond in all its beauty only when the waters are still, similarly, you start seeing the deeper elements in your mind and understanding them better.
Once you reach these elements, you resolve the deepest of neuroses and complexities of the mind. These automatically remove the cause of anger. You will be pleasantly surprised to see how you are no longer provoked by the automatic triggers of the past.
Without fighting your anger, you start training your mind to develop a witness-like attitude. This observer attitude results in the anger dissipating.
You start seeing some wonderful perspectives. You start appreciating that it is not necessarily the desire of the person to hurt you - getting angry is YOUR response. You realize that a person is seeing the situation from his point of view to the best of his intellectual and emotional capability - he may not be quite ‘capable enough’ to appreciate your point of view. This is only natural - because individuals are built in different ways. After all, aren’t you showing similar traits when you are getting angry!
Developing this observer attitude is NOT difficult. Yoga also has some very powerful tools in the form of “antar mouna” meditation techniques that help you cultivate this attitude. Moreover, as you start reaping the wonderful fruits of such an attitude, such a behavioral pattern only gets reinforced.
Over time, with such an attitude, you will see that not only do you get angry less often, but also each brush with an unpleasant situation provides a remarkable opportunity to know your subconscious mind in a better way. Every such insight brings you one step closer to the supreme goal - that is, Enlightenment (perpetual Bliss).
Source : HealthandYoga.com
Mountain Meditation Technique
I Am the Mountain
The purpose of yoga is to withdraw the consciousness from the body and center it in the spine. The following exercise, I Am the Mountain, will help you become more aware of your spine. It is an excellent practice for internalizing your awareness and learning to relate to life intuitively.
The I Am the Mountain meditation can be practiced alone or with another person. To begin, look for a place outdoors where it is beautiful; if this isn’t possible revisit such a place in your mind and use your imagination. Then meditate a few minutes to become calm and interiorized.
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How the exercise works when done alone:
Quietly repeat the words I Am. After each time you say I Am, look for something in nature that captivates you—perhaps a cloud sailing across the sky or the wind playing music in the forest. Whatever it is, feel its living reality inside of you, in your spine. Enjoy it there for a few moments, and then quietly whisper a simple word or phrase that describes your experience of what you were observing. For example, it may go like this:
I Am……..the drifting cloud……..I Am……..the waving branches……I Am……..the exhilaration of the wind racing across the lake
Feel a sense of communion with everything you see. Be also aware of the energy in your spine. Sensitively feel, for example, how sensing a tall tree in your spine, stimulates your energy.
Repeat I Am, I Love and/or I Receive for five minutes, then relax and enjoy the serenity of nature within and all around you.
How to share I Am the Mountain with a friend:
Choose one of you to be the prompter, who says “I Am,” and the other one to be the responder. The prompter sits behind to allow the responder an unobstructed view. Having one partner repeat I Am (or I Love, I Receive) keeps the other one focused and in the present moment. Doing I Am the Mountain with a friend creates a shared sense of communion with nature and with each other.
Switch roles when desired.
Nurturing a Happy Heart: Yoga
Stand up. Really, stand up. Inhale deeply and reach for the sky, as high as you can. Next, slowly blow your breath out, sweeping your arms past your sides and bending toward the floor as you empty your lungs. Draw fresh air into your lungs and slowly roll back up to a standing position, arms by your sides. Feels good, doesn’t it?
You can sit down now.
What you just did was sample the simple science of yoga — moving your body to fend off sitting disease while clearing your mind to nurture a peaceful, happy, healthy heart.
Unlike Western medicine, which takes the Jiffy Lube approach to wellness by directing you to a fix-it specialist for each of your broken parts (Bunions? See a podiatrist. Depression? That’s a psychiatrist’s job!), traditional Eastern medicine uses holistic systems such as yoga to treat your mind and body as one.
Developed 5,000 years ago in India, yoga reached American shores with immigrants back in the 1800s. Only in recent decades, though, has our faster-moving, increasingly stressed population embraced this exercise that’s more serene than sweat, more meditative than muscle. Today in the United States, more than 15 million people include yoga in their regular fitness routines. Its advocates range from Madonna to Sandra Day O’Connor and from NFL running backs to Wall Street brokers.
Although some people focus their practice more behind — striving for the coveted firm “yoga butt” — than inward, scientific evidence from the past 10 years shows that this traditional-yet-trendy, mind-body medicine can relieve symptoms of chronic diseases such as cancer, arthritis, and yes, heart disease. Even hospitals are getting in on the act. At New York Presbyterian Hospital and Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, cardiologists routinely steer patients into programs that offer yoga as part of their preventive and rehabilitative care.
Hooked?
Once you get a taste of yoga, you may find yourself craving a full course. Investing more time will help you reap even more benefits. If you’re interested, try a Sun Salutation workout — a popular series of 12 yoga postures performed in a single, graceful flow. The Sun Salutation builds strength, as well as increasing flexibility and promoting a sense of calm. If that isn’t enough to quench your thirst, yoga information is easy to find. Bookstores have loads of great guides; almost all gyms and senior centers offer classes; videos are available at the library; yoga magazines are on newsstands; and, of course, the Internet has an overwhelming amount of information.
Disease Reversal
Internationally renowned heart disease researcher Dean Ornish, M.D., of the Preventive Medicine Research Institute in Sausalito, California, may have been the first Western physician to place yoga alongside diet and exercise at the foundation of a heart-healthy lifestyle. In his most cited study in 1990, Dr. Ornish tested 48 men and women with medically documented coronary heart disease. The doctor assigned 28 participants to a lifestyle regimen that included yoga, group counseling, and an extremely low-fat vegetarian diet. The rest received their usual care and continued their regular lifestyle habits.
After a year, those in Dr. Ornish’s test group actually had clearer, more supple arteries — indicating that their heart disease was reversing — while the arteries of those in the control group continued to clog and harden. Eight years later, he published a follow-up study showing that 80 percent of 194 men and women with heart disease were able to avoid bypass surgery by following a similar lifestyle intervention program that included yoga.
Although the lion’s share of his colleagues credited the spartan, zero-saturated-fat food plan with bulldozing built-up plaque, Dr. Ornish steadfastly argues that adherence to yoga is as strongly correlated with reductions in artery blockage as is adherence to the diet.
During a 2003 study, a research team in India tested 113 men and women, ages 35 to 70, with documented coronary artery disease. They placed 71 in a yoga lifestyle program, which included stress management, exercise, and a plant-based diet, while the remaining volunteers took heart medications and followed a more typical Western medicine prescription of diet and lifestyle tweaks. One year later, the yoga group had fared much better, averaging a 23 percent drop in cholesterol levels compared with only a 4 percent reduction among the med-taking volunteers. What’s more, 44 percent of the yoga participants showed reversals of their heart disease, and artery hardening was stopped in its tracks for 47 percent — significantly greater improvements than those in the control group.
Fight-or-Flight Deactivated
While there’s no denying that diet is a powerful component of the “yoga lifestyle,” the ability of this flowing, serene exercise to defuse stress is probably yoga’s most potent power in battling heart disease. We’ve all heard of the fight-or-flight response, which occurs when, at the slightest whiff of threat, your body’s Fort Knoxian personal security system gushes adrenaline and cortisol into your bloodstream to mobilize fat from your body’s stores to fuel your muscles — and your escape. The problem is, in modern society, you’re more likely to face an angry boss than a charging buffalo, so instead of fighting or fleeing, you’re left stewing in that toxic self-defense cocktail. The result: elevated blood pressure, higher cholesterol, and an increased likelihood of blood clots.
Now for some good news. Just as your body is equipped with a punch-and-run reflex during times of perceived danger, it also has a pretty good peacetime plan, known as the relaxation response, which gives your battle-weary nervous system some much-needed R&R. The catch: Like a day spent with your mind wrapped up in a novel and your toes nestled in warm sand, the relaxation response doesn’t just happen during everyday chaotic life. You have to pursue it — and yoga is one of the best paths you can take.
As you draw in deep belly breaths and release built-up tension by extending your limbs through their full range of motion, focusing your thoughts on each pose, you flip the switch that deactivates the fight-or-flight system and engages the relaxation response. Your heartbeat slows and your blood pressure drops. Over time, if you practice regularly, you can even lower the “alert level” of your autonomic nervous system so that you’re walking around more relaxed all the time.
Like standard stretching, yoga also increases circulation and improves blood supply to the heart. With better blood flow, your heart doesn’t have to work as hard to deliver fresh nutrients and oxygen to your organs and muscles. By entering a relaxed state, you also increase your coronary blood flow by decreasing artery constriction.
As a side benefit, regular yoga stretching lengthens muscles and connective tissues, improving your flexibility and range of motion so you can enjoy heart-healthy aerobic and strengthening activities with less muscle soreness and chronic aches and pains.
Source : Readers Digest
Relaxation
Relaxation
Just as it is necessary to release the tensions in the muscles, it is also essential to release the tensions in the mind. Usually, mental tension is caused by preoccupations about the past or desires for the future. If we would live completely in the here and now, it would be very easy to stay relaxed and happy. Meditation helps bring us into this state, but we must relax, at least partially, before we can begin to meditate effectively.
- “How to Meditate”, Jyotish Novak
Sitting still might seem easy, but it actually makes a tremendous demand on the body and mind. Most of the time our bodies are in motion, so much so, we hardly notice it. But once we stop moving, it can be very hard to maintain stillness. Allow for the fact that it takes time, each time you meditate, to go from motion to stillness, from outwardness to inwardness. This is true on every level of our being. Every moment of our lives we are usually active, unless we are asleep, and even then there is a certain level of movement of the body and mind. Meditation is being, not doing. Think of a lake, turbulent on the surface, but the depths are still and calm. To get to the depths you must dive through the restless surface.
An important rule in life is: Don’t be impatient. This rule is doubly important for meditation, for whereas the general stricture against impatience gives hope of finding inner peace in meditation, that hope is demolished if one applies to meditation itself attitudes that we’ve developed in the “rat race.” To find God, it is better to be a long-distance runner than a sprinter. Today’s meditative efforts will have to be renewed tomorrow, and again the day after tomorrow, and the day after that, and so on for as long as it takes to achieve the consciousness of the Eternal Now.
Don’t let your approach to meditation be so achievement-oriented that you end up mentally tense. Yogananda, noting my own tendency toward impatience, once said to me, “The principle of karma yoga applies to meditative action also. Meditate to please God. Don’t meditate with desire for the fruits of your meditations. It is best, in the beginning, to emphasize relaxation.”
The more you seek rest as the consequence of doing, rather than in the process of doing, the more restless you will become. Peace isn’t waiting for you over the next hill. Nor is it something you construct, like a building. It must be a part of the creative process itself.
Learn to be restful, even in the midst of activity, and you will be able to relax better when you sit to meditate. As Paramhansa Yogananda put it, “Be calmly active, and actively calm.”