What Are Best Yoga Poses For Reducing Hypertension And Anxiety?

by Abhishek Sharma
(Mumbai, India)

Hi, I am Abhishek, 23 years of age. I have had a problem of getting hypertensed at times and anxious where there is no need of it. In other words, I feel anxious and tensed all the time and suffer from intense negative thoughts. I tried to calm myself down but nothing really happened. But I have often heard that some yoga poses have been proved to be really helpful for reducing anxiety and hypertension. I want to know that what's the best suitable time for practicing yoga in the whole day and what should be the duration for it?


Answer

Hello Abhishek

Yes, yoga can help you to improve your health and reduce your anxiety. Spend at least an hour a day on yoga practice.

Here are some guidelines you can follow:

1. Preferred time for doing yoga practice is early in the morning, say around 5 AM.

2. Start with a generic sequence for first one month consisting of simple yoga poses and pranayama. Do simple asanas that you can do comfortably so that yoga practice becomes enjoyable. Do not over exert, gradually increase the number of repetitions of asanas and the duration/ holding of the asanas. Do yoga at slow pace, no jerky movements and no hurrying up while doing yoga. You need to increase your self awareness.

3. Yoga is more than few asanas or pranayama, it is a way of life. It is more of self realisation and a way to more spiritual approach to life.

4. You can practice these yoga poses for anxiety and hypertension.

~ trikonasana
~ tadasana
~ janushirasana
~ bhujang asana
~ padotanasnaa
~ yoga nidra

Yoga nidra is a deep relaxation technique which you can do at the end of yoga workout or before sleeping.

5. After yoga poses, you can practice these yoga breathing exercises/ pranayama for anxiety and hypertension.

~ deep rhythmic breathing for 5 minutes.
~ alom vilom for 5-10 minutes.
~ chandrabhedi pranayama.
~ om recitation at least 20 times.

6. After yoga poses and pranayama take rest in shavasana for 5 to 10 minutes. This will be most beneficial for complete body relaxation after yoga practice.

Some tips for reducing anxiety.

7. Take 7-8 hours sleep during night, avoid too spicy food especially in dinner. Practice moderation in eating and restraint in your dealings with other people and family members.

8. You have to keep calm, increase self awareness. I guess you are getting disturbed by external factors which are beyond your control. Develop a regular yoga practice and pranayama. Get more confident. Yoga breathing can really help you to calm down a lot. If you are calm and composed, you should be able to control your response to external triggers/ factors beyond your control.

~ Prioritise your work.
~ Try to remove the cause of your worries, act rather than worry.


Hope this helps,
Daljit

References

Free yoga course
Yoga Breathing Lessons
A generic yoga sequence
Yoga for relaxation