7 Yoga Asanas for Anxiety that you can Practice Daily

Last Updated on December 18th, 2020

There was time when anxiety was considered to be ‘over acting’ by the society. If you have ever watched any old Bollywood movies, where a lead role faces any harsh reality looses its cool and tend to be disturbed by anything related to it, people called ‘Pagal hona’. Is it really so? Just because a person is mentally disturbed make him/her ‘pagal’? And in those times people considered talking about mental illness as ‘Baat ka batangarh’!

Thankfully, our era and with the commencement of huge digitization, we have come across this word ‘anxiety’ a pretty much a lot. Down the line we all know, it’s not normal. Anything that affects your mental peace or harm you emotionally, needs to be discussed. Be a close family member, friend or a one to one personal health coach. Please do let things out before it takes a toll on you and your family.

Anxiety is one such mental illness or a mental disorder that has recently hit the country specially the people with the age ranging between 20-35 years.

What is Anxiety?

What do you think anxiety is? When this question was asked in one of my yoga session, all the people where dumbstruck, including me, we never thought that this word could have a proper definition. The answers slowly came in all forms: some said, it’s a kind of mental illness, some said it is an emotional state when a mind gets  disturbed by anything that cause you harm and etc, but in one of those answers their was a girl in her mid 20’s who said ‘Anxiety is a fear, fear of losing, fear of betrayal, fear of getting hit by your partner, basically it’s a kind of fear that has taken a control over your entire mind and body.

The fear is so powerful that sitting and discussing it with someone calls in for a lot of courage…” I think, I have never understood anxiety until I heard this from a girl who has in itself been in anxiety for so many years. After having a good discussion on anxiety, she told us what leads to anxiety and why there is no particular formula or medicine to come out of it.

You heard that right, there is no fixed formula that can guarantee you that taking this or doing this will help someone in getting over anxiety. It all depends upon the person’s environment and state of mind. No matter how many days you try to take them to rehab, or let them have a proper prescribed medication, until an unless the person is fear-free or guilt ridden or may emotionally stable, anxiety will always find its way to stay intact to you.

With my understanding and doing a detailed research on this topic, I came up with few methods by which you can help yourself or anyone in an around you to get over anxiety.

Here are 7 yoga postures that can help you get over anxiety:

Posture 1:  Normal Pose or (Sukhasana)

I always suggest my readers to always take up yoga, even when you are totally healthy and not diagnosed with any sort of disease. Yoga at a very basic level only help you to keep calm, happy and refreshes your mind and train you to be patient at all levels. This eventually helps to get rid of so many health problems. Out of many yoga exercises, Sukhasana is one of the most common asana that our grandparents always used to do and always asked us to do as the first thing in the morning. This asana is just like a normal meditation we do. I personally do this asana right after getting up in the morning.

To do this asana:

• Sit on the yoga mat, with your legs folded,
• Try to keep your body loose and
• Keep your hand in front of the legs
• Close your eyes and in your mind chant “OM” along with your breathe
• As you start “OM” inhale and exhale when you reach at the peak of your breath intake
• Again inhale while chanting “OM”
• You can always chant “OM” if you want to, or else just try to focus OM in your mind while breathing

This will help you feel light and fresh. Also this is considered as the best first aid when you are getting anxiety attacks.

Do this exercise for at least 15 times before switching on to the rest of the routine.

Posture 2: Camel Pose or (Ustrasana)

In my previous articles, I mentioned how Camel pose asana is helpful for thyroid patients and how adding this to the routine will give positive results in treating, similarly, Camel pose is also useful in treating anxiety. Yoga poses and posture are not just limited with one to two pros, that’s the magic of yoga. 

To do this asana:

–   Sit on your knees on a yoga mat

• Keep a little distance between both the legs
• Place both the hands on your waist
• Now, try to bend your upper body towards your back.
• There will be a slight strain on your waist and neck region,
• After the body is bended backwards, stay their for 2-3 seconds and
• Then come to normal posture
• Take easy if your beginner but slowly try to push yourself in 3-4 sessions
• Do this for at least 20 times

Posture 3: Bow pose or (Dhanurasana)

This asana is very useful not just for anxiety but also for loosing lower belly fat.

To to this asana:

• lie on the mat, letting your abdomen touch the mat
• Now slowly raise your both the legs upwards (keeping the entire weight on the knees)
• Now bring both the hands towards your hip and try holding the leg with your palms
• This posture will try to give a strain in your lower belly as well as forearms, but that is only useful.
• While you try to hold your leg with your arm, inhale.
• And stay in the position for 10 second before exhaling and bringing it back to normal.
• Do this asana for 15 times before taking a break (only if it is comfortable for you)

If you are new to yoga, try doing it 6 times initially and gradually increase the number with every session.

Posture 4: Head to knee forward bend or (Janu Sirsasana)

A very effective yoga asana, this asana is a little difficult to get it right in the first few session, but with increasing practise you will get it right. This is also useful in eliminating lower belly fat, tonnes thigh muscles etc.

To do this asana:

• Sit on the yoga mat, with legs extended forward,
• Now bring one leg close to your other leg thigh and tuck it over their
• The other leg that is still extended, bring your both arm towards the feet of that leg
• Making it the feet, while doing this make sure your both the hands are cupping well with your feet and your lower belly and forehead is touching your legs.
• This exercise gives a tucking effect to your lower body and increases blood flow in your brains, that makes it easier for recovering when you are stressed out or get panic attacks.

Posture 5: Leg-up-the-wall pose or (Viparita Karani)

A very easy asana  and something everyone can take in when you feel you are feeling dizzy or are tending to get panic attacks. You don’t need any special time or routine to take this up.

To do this asana:

• Lie down on the yoga mat,
• Bring your both the legs in contact with the wall,
• Make sure your legs are extended up till your hip region ( a little straining tight)
• Now make your feet movement in the wall in the upward and downward portion
• And keep your both the arms on your belly and breathe as comfortably as you can.
• If you are new to yoga, initially this blood flow from top to bottom will make this a little hectic so you can always prefer bending your knees at some time and then continuing whatever is comfortable for you.
• Remember breathing is the key element, the better and longer, the calmer and smoother it gets.

There is no perfect count for this exercise and hence you can take this up as long as it calms you down most preferably do it for 15-20 times. 

Posture 6: Fish Pose or (Matsyasana)

This asana goes well with camel pose, this is yet again a very easy asana and can be taken in your routine as well.

To do this asana-

• Lie on the yoga mat, in a normal sleeping pose
• Bring your feet together
• Also bring your hand near to your chest region, keeping intact to the ground,
• Now with the help of your hand raise your neck and upper body region till you can and rise upwards,
• Now bend your head and neck region downwards,
• Then come back to top by lowering your abdomen region towards the ground.
• Do this exercise for at least 15 times before taking any break.
• This exercise doesn’t require any extra effort and blends well with your routine for fighting anxiety.

Posture 7: Bound Angle Pose or (Baddha Konasana)

Always suggested to end your session with something that is relaxing and clams down your body.

Take this asana at the end where you give yourself the energy to take all the positivity from the session.

To do this asana:

• Sit on the yoga mat, bring both the legs together
• By touching your feet together,
• This will stretch your legs more than the normal position.
• After getting into the posture, bring your palm towards the feet,
• Your hand should be straight along with your back region.
• Now stay in the position for some time (make sure you inhale and exhale at a normal interval)
• Keep your eyes close and focus on your breathing.
• Do this for 2-4 mins and you can relax for the day.

Anxiety cannot be completely cured with just yoga, or medication. It can be cured when handled with care and love. When we discuss or try to fight our fear out we tend to grow stronger, if we don’t, we fall down in a pool of even more sanity. Try helping people by motivating them, showing gratitude. No matter what medicine does, kindness will always have a way to show some help.

Lastly, never forget the fitness mantra, Eat well, sleep well and be healthy.

Namaste!

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Gazal Mittal

An engineering aspirant, a book lover by choice, loves travelling with dairy and pen, fitness motivator- Can help people who hate gyms to fall in love with fitness in 7 days or may be help a busy mom to reduce her baby bump in like 12 weeks!

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