The good news is that practicing yoga is a robust way to release stress. Yes, when our nerves seem to be unraveling and our minds are racing, yoga can step into the fray and quiet the world. Yoga may help relieve stress and restore balance leading to a more centered life.

Unreleased Stress

Stress in itself is a natural human response to situations in which we find ourselves having to focus. Hunting, protecting the lives of your family, facing the unknown all need a helping hand. The body produces a stress hormone, cortisol, evolved to do just that. When the situation returns to normal, cortisol metabolizes releasing stress.

The problem arises when stress is chronic. If stress is not released it has a direct impact on the immune system leading to mood swings, irritability, and even disease. The problem is not stress itself, rather, unreleased stress is what takes its toll on modern humans.

Yoga and Stress Release

Some Obvious Non-Yoga Ways to Walk the Yoga Path

There are any number of ways to release stress and promote health from the inside out. Only yoga, it seems, focuses on both the body and the mind at the same time. In this way, yoga promotes health from the inside out.

Coupled with yoga, one can kickstart the process by being 'dressed for success.' This meme appears to be vanilla floating in a sea of chocolate. It seems to obvious that it need no vocalization. We all know that you don't go to a wedding dressed in a jogging outfit. You don't wear a bikini to church. It would be inappropriate for a plumber to go to work in a suit and tie or for a lawyer to show up in court in plumbers overalls. So why would yoga be any different?

Women's yoga apparel is clearly optional in the yoga studio. There are no requirements that you wear yoga pants and a sports bra. But if 'dressing for success' begins on the inside and moves toward the outside then what better way to show your commitment than by dressing the part. Psychologists will tell you that a change in behavior begins by 'acting as if' your behavior has already changed. When wearing women's yoga apparel at the beginning, you are acting as if waiting for the moment that it is you. Just something to think about.