Yoga for Stress & Anxiety Relief - Therapeutic Yoga

Transcript

hey everybody it's doctor jo and 
my good friend and mentor trudy,   and today we're going to show you therapeutic 
yoga for stress. so let's get started.   so trudy is not only a physical therapist, 
but she is also a registered yoga teacher.   so she is my resident expert to do this. and you 
guys always ask me what kind of stuff do you do.   i always refer to her youtube channel or her 
website her online classes for yoga stuff because   they are awesome. they're real time, so they're 
really great. you want to tell a little bit about   your website? sure healwellnessandtherapy.com, 
there you have it. go to it and the youtube   channel is "heal wellness and therapy." nice 
and simple. all right, let's get to some stress   management. yeah. all right guys. so yes, i 
am Trudy form heal wellness and therapy, but   no you're not going to hear me saying "a" at the 
end of every sentence. because she's from Canada!   all right. so we're gonna talk about stress with 
therapeutic yoga today. now here's the thing i   need to tell you about the nervous system. if 
you're going to work on stress and yoga. so   i have the quickest easiest way to do 
it, and i call it the two by two by two   two two by two by two two. all right there we 
have it. so our nervous system has two parts. the   central nervous system and the peripheral nervous 
system. now the peripheral nerve nervous system,   two parts. it has our volitional control, 
what we do when we move our body,   and then it has the autonomic control, which 
means we don't have control about it. but in fact,   that's what we're going to hijack today is that 
autonomic nervous system. finally the autonomic   nervous system, guess what two more, two more 
you have it. parasympathetic, rest, relax, renew,   and sympathetic, flight, fight, freeze, those 
are the two parts of our nervous system that   control our stress centers in our brain, and all 
of our bodily functions when it comes to stress.   so did you know that you have nerves that come 
out of the back of your skull that are either   sympathetic nerves or parasympathetic nerves. so 
what we're going to do today with therapeutic yoga   is we're going to spice up, really stimulate 
two parasympathetic nerves, and then we're   gonna kind of calm down or de-stress a 
sympathetic nerve. so let's start with a   parasympathetic nerve. so cranial nerve comes out 
here number three. do you know what that's for?   no. all right. ocular motor nerve, so it 
controls all of the movements of your eyes.   so believe it or not, guys, if you're stressed, 
all you need to do is find a nice good posture   and work on eye movements. in fact there's, an 
entire part of psychotherapy that that's all they   do is eye movements to manage stress. so let's 
give it a try. sitting nice and tall shoulders   relaxed and neck nice and long, chin gently 
tucked, in tongue on the roof of your mouth,   resting position for your jaw, 
so we don't clench our jaws.   all right. gazing straight ahead for me, we're 
going to work on stimulating the oculomotor nerve.   so keeping your head still, don't let it move, 
take your eyes and turn your gaze to the right.   you've got it. keep your gaze to the right. now 
let's see how coordinated jo is. can you then   side bend your head to the right? oh she's got 
it, and she's even smiling at the same time.   stay right there keep the gaze down keep the 
head side bent, take a nice slow deep inhale   into your diaphragm. diaphragmatic breathing 
immediately calms you down as you exhale go   slower. you've got it. now keep the gaze to the 
right but unbend the head, come back upright,   all right. and then finally bring the eyes 
back to the center. it's as simple as that.   and that's. let's try the other side. you 
ready? okay, lengthen the neck, settle the chin,   relax the shoulders, tongue to the roof of the 
mouth, you got it. all right eyes to the left,   keep that head still there dr jo. i saw you move 
it. keep the head still, eyes to the left. okay   now keeping the eyes to the left, can you side 
bend the head to the left? she's got it. all   right maintain gaze down to the left head to 
the left, give me a nice slow deep inhale,   and slower exhale. you got it. slowly keep the 
eyes to that left, but bring the head back up to   the center. uh-huh, and then finally those eyes 
come back to the center. now you can do that   in any amount of different movements of your eyes. 
so let's just go over them all. we're not going   to do every one today, but let's go over them. so 
body nice and tall. shoulder blades back and down.   lengthen the neck. settle the chin. tongue to the 
roof the mouth. do you think i haven't said that a   thousand times in my life? all right, keeping your 
gaze and your eyes forward, your neck straight.   options are eyes to the left. got it. 
eyes to the center. eyes to the right.   got it. eyes to the center. don't 
move that head. eyes up. eyes down.   eyes to the center. all right now we're really 
going to get complicated. are you ready?   eyes up to the right. eyes down to the left. 
back to the center. eyes up to the left.   down to the right. and to the center. 
final one, convergence. that means   let's cross those eyes. how good is she at it? 
there she goes. cross those eyes for me. hold it   lengthen your neck. settle your chin. relax 
your shoulders. and take a deep inhale in,   and exhaling out. beautiful. relaxing. so believe 
it or not something as simple as working your eye   muscles taps into your relaxation response. 
all right. i feel more relaxed. do you feel   it? wonderful. okay guys, second exercise 
for therapeutic yoga to combat stress we are   going to tackle the facial nerve on top of 
something even way more fun. so your facial   nerve is another one of those cranial nerves that 
comes out of your skull and it is related to that   parasympathetic nervous system. so did you know 
that when you do as something simple as smiling, it relaxes your body? so what we're going to do 
is we're going to fire up those facial muscles as   much as we can, and but wait there's more, we're 
going to do some laughter yoga. so here's the   thing about laughter yoga. you cannot laugh on the 
inhale. try it jo, can you laugh on the inhale? you cannot laugh on the inhale. so 
when you're laughing you're exhaling,   and when you're exhaling longer than you're 
inhaling, you're relaxing your body. so let's   see if jo can do two things at once. here we go 
all right. big smile, smile through your eyes,   you got it. now i want you to give me the 
loudest strongest laugh you can possibly give me,   and here's it, we're gonna do it for 10 
seconds. you ready? okay. three two one and go! <laughter> one and relax. are you stressed, or 
are you relaxed? i'm pretty relaxed.   got it. so guys you know what, we don't 
put enough into laughing and smiling,   but it combats stress. all right 
final thing we're going to do. final thing we're going to do is, we've just 
tackled two nerves of our nervous system   that relax our body, now we're gonna do the 
opposite. so we're gonna tackle a nerve from our   skull, a cranial nerve called the accessory nerve. 
and that particular nerve supplies two muscles   of your neck. so when you think about yourself 
being stressed, where do you put your shoulders?   you got it. that's where they are. so what 
we're gonna do is we're gonna use a yoga strap.   you've got it, to really lengthen through these 
muscles of your neck. so here's what i want you   to do, jo. take the yoga strap place it up 
and over your right neck. let's un-loop it.   i guess i must have had a loop the last time i 
was practicing yoga. there we go. okay so the   yoga strap up and over the right neck. now where 
you want to place it on your neck is where you   would have like a necklace. okay then hold it in 
the front on the right, hold it on the back on   the left. you've got it. now what that is going 
to do is it's going to allow you to mobilize the   tissues and the muscles of your neck backwards. 
so jo, sit nice and tall. lengthen your neck,   settle your chin, relax your shoulder blades back, 
and down. hold the strap. now with the left strap,   pull all those neck muscles backwards. you've got 
it. now just doing that you're starting to create   relaxation in that muscle. so if all you did was 
that and take a nice deep inhale into the belly,   and exhaling out slowly. we're relaxing. but 
let's add to it very gentle with that neck thing,   in your into your throat, lightly side bend gently 
to the left now. no pain, no big stretch here,   this isn't about stretching upper trapezius, it's 
about creating length to calm the nervous system.   that's it. keep that chin tucked. give me a deep 
belly breath. yeah. and exhaling out. all right   keep the side bend, but now take that chin and 
look up. now we're getting nice good lengthen to   that sternocleidomastoid muscle, the second muscle 
innervated by that tight tight nerve. deep inhale   into the belly, and exhaling out. you've got it, 
jo. slowly relaxing the neck down. slowly relaxing   the tension on the strap, and let's do it all over 
on the opposite side. so as she brings the strap   up and over to the left side, again make sure it's 
where you would wear a necklace on your neck so   that you're getting right where those neck muscles 
are. holding the strap in the front on the same   side, holding it, behind on the opposite side now. 
shoulder blades back and down, and relax neck,   nice and long. chin settled into your throat, 
you've got it. now pull with the right hand.   take all of those neck muscle tissues and pull 
them back. your body is immediately saying, ahhh. but let's add a bit of length to it. so lengthen 
your neck, settle your chin, did you see how she   smiled and added that facial nerve? i'm liking 
it dr jo. chin stays gently tucked and then side   bend your head over to the right. now just 
gentle tension into the muscle, not an aggressive   stretch, holding here nice deep inhale into the 
belly, and exhaling out. you've got it. now adding   sternocleidomastoid, that second muscle, turning 
that chin up getting that nice good length into   that sternocleidomas sternocleidomastoid 
muscle. deep inhale into the belly   and exhaling out. by george she's done it. 
relaxing the head back into the upright position,   and relaxing the strap. so there you have it. 
three nerves exercised with therapeutic yoga, body   relaxed, very relaxed, mind rested and renewed, 
relaxation response has happened. all right   awesome. well there you have it if you'd like to 
help support my channel, make sure and click on   the link over there, and don't for don't forget to by clicking down there. and remember be   safe, have fun, and i hope you feel better soon. 
and it's a yoga class, so let's end with a natural   salute to everyone. hands to your heart, smile on 
our face, hello facial nerve, nice deep inhale in,   exhaling out. namaste. namaste. the 
highest in me salutes the highest in you.