How yoga helps you to manage stress at work

If your working life feels continuously stressful, discover how the tools of slow mindful yoga are helpful

Stress has become an inevitable part of the daily routine for many of us in the workplace. The constant pressure to perform, long working hours and often tricky interpersonal relationships are some of the factors causing stress, and while short term or acute stress is beneficial when something needs to be done in straight away, ongoing or chronic stress is not great for mental and physical health.

So what exactly is stress?

Stress is the body’s rapid physiological response to a threat, where the optimum conditions are created to either fight or escape the danger. The so-called stress response is the release of a surge of hormones, mainly adrenaline and cortisol, which cause an increase in heart rate, blood pressure and blood flow to muscles so that the body is primed for action. In times when physical danger was common, as in escaping a wild animal, the ensuing action of fighting or fleeing discharged these physiological conditions so that our bodies could recover and return to a normal resting state.

How chronic work related stress affects mind and body

Most of the stressors in our working lives are mental and emotional, such as pressure to meet a looming deadline or the fear of losing your job, and do not require a physical flight or escape to be resolved!  Because of this, there’s no ‘offloading’ of the physiological conditions, we remain in a partially stressed state, with high cortisol levels.

In the short and medium term, these can increase muscular tension, aches and pains, give rise to anxious feelings, impair digestive function, cause headaches, sap our energy and disrupt sleep. In the longer term, chronic stress can lead to burnout, anxiety or depression affecting your ability to work well.

Slow yoga enables body awareness while simple stretches relieve aches & pains

We often don't notice changes in our bodies when we’re hyper focused at work. Slow mindful yoga (which is distinct from fitness based yoga) facilitates interoception or awareness of the internal state of our bodies, including heart rate, breathing, temperature, hunger or thirst. We often only start to pay any attention, when we feel muscular pain such as an intense back, neck or shoulder pain!

Simple desk-based movements and postures are effective in releasing and preventing muscular tension caused by sitting at a desk for long periods. Mindful yoga helps you to pay attention and tune into your body with the simplest of feel-good movements. When you feel good in your body, you feel good in your mind!

Learning the skills to relax on cue

Long days at work are tiring, so learning how to revitalise when your energy levels drop is a useful skill. This can be as simple as a mini rest at your desk or a more amplified lying down relaxation practice such as yoga nidra or restorative yoga. both of which shift the autonomic nervous system into deep parasympathetic or ‘rest-digest’ mode (see our yoga dictionary for definitions).

Relaxation not only revitalises our much needed vitality, it helps us to become better at shifting into a more relaxed mode on cue, and helps us to relax and wind down after long stressful days at work.

Yoga breathwork helps to slow down a racing mind at work

Yoga breathing practices and techniques enable you to shift your state of body and mind, so when stress happens you have the tools to cope.

When we’re feeling stressed and agitated, slow breathing practices help to shift us into a calmer state of mind. Feeling stressed may cause shallow ‘chest’ breathing, rather than diaphragmatic or ‘belly’ breathing, which allows for better expansion of our lungs.

Learning basic calming breathing practices are immensely useful as they can be done at any time of the day without anyone noticing!

Mindfulness and meditation build mental resilience

Meditation and mindfulness bring our attention to the present moment enabling a more neutral mindset, allowing for presence and open mindedness, instead of ruminating and over analysing.

Simple mindfulness practices can be simple and short so they fit into your busy working day, such as a mini mindfulness practice on your way to work.

A study showed that people who practice meditation showed less blood flow in the fear centre (the amygdalae) and more activity in the rational centre (prefrontal cortex), suggesting that meditators do notice negative stimulae but are less affected by it. (Desai,Tailor and Batt 2015).

Slow mindful yoga builds relationships in the workplace

As a group activity away from screen based work, yoga is a great way to develop positive interactions and build better relationships at work. The calm atmosphere of a slow mindful class helps to reframe the work place as a less stressful environment!

Sources:

The Physiology of Yoga, Andrew McGonigle and Matthew Huy (2023)

When the Body says No, The Cost of Hidden Stress, Gabor Mate (2019)

Yoga for Mental Health, Heather Mason and Kelly Birch (2018)

If you would like to bring yoga into your workplace, read more here about how we can work together.