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Part 1: Yoga for Stress Management: An Overview and Practice Welcome to all those on the webcast. Our class today will be a little special, focusing on yoga for stress management. We have many exercises in Yoga in Daily Life, and this is just a small selection. Stress is tricky because it builds up in a way we often don't realize, and suddenly someone has a nervous breakdown. First, we usually feel something like mental tension or physical tension. There are quite a lot of symptoms related to or caused by stress—just an overview—like headache, damage of the brain tissues, high blood pressure. But if it becomes more serious, if someone is really in a permanent stress situation, it can also cause asthma, Alzheimer’s, ulcers, heart failure, and eating disorders. And, of course, a very common way of trying to deal with it is the abuse of drugs or alcohol. Our judgment about stress is quite clear. But first, before we judge, we should try to understand what stress actually is. Stress, in the scientific way of speaking about it, is actually something positive. It is a reaction in our body trying to help us cope with dangerous, often life-threatening situations, in which we usually have two choices: to face the situation or to try to escape from it. Let’s say you go somewhere in the street at night and suddenly some doubtful people are approaching you. Stress, fear. What will happen? So, what can you do? Either you can say, "Okay, I will learn to deal with this. I will know how to defend myself and go on," or you decide to make your heels and run away. This is called the fight or flight syndrome. In such situations, the body reacts in a specific way: the glands excrete two hormones, adrenaline and cortisol. Both have the effect of giving you a short-term injection of energy. That’s exactly what you need, either to fight or to escape. So this is a scientific view of stress, and it’s good. We need that injection, and these hormones are also not harmful so far as it was meant to be—the good stress, we can say, the good stress reaction. That’s what we actually now mean in our modern language when we speak about stress. Also, in our daily life, we often have situations where we can neither fight nor flee. We are bound in these permanent situations, and that creates real stress. So now the question is, what to do? The stress is building up every day in different situations, again and again. So what would be the answer? To break it down daily, and that would be one way to do yoga in daily life. As the stress level goes up, break it down also every day so that you don’t allow the stress level to accumulate and get higher and higher. When you practice yoga regularly every day, you should already be on a somewhat low stress level. Yet, if you feel you are really strongly in stress, certain techniques will be very good to be done daily, especially Yoga Nidrā. When I sometimes have a topic like this and I start thinking, "What did I learn from Swāmījī? What do we have in our yoga system?" I’m always amazed at how many techniques we have. The first thing we can do is work with sound. That means humming, chanting of mantras, for example, Oṃ, singing, for example, bhajans. And we have a special prāṇāyāma where we use this humming sound, the Brahmārī Prāṇāyāma. Working with sound, using the sound, is really powerful. Just remember, Swāmījī says, through Oṃ, through the sound, this vibration of Oṃ, the whole universe has been created. Sound is the strongest power in the universe, so it should be strong enough to help us with stress. Then, of course, with our āsanas. Stress manifests in our body in certain parts. Maybe I can ask you, where do you feel stress usually manifesting, in which part of the body? So she points to the shoulders. She points to the neck. What more? Okay. Where do you feel more stress? Where are you? Do you feel stress physically in your body? Yeah, we had this already, here in the head. So it’s the upper part actually. It’s around the neck, shoulders, and chest area, and also often as a back pain. Am I right? So, we already know we have so many exercises for these, especially in level 1. So let’s simply use them. Therefore, our yoga class today will be quite gentle. Then prāṇa. Swāmījī spoke now so much about prāṇa. Prāṇāyāma techniques can help a lot. When I mentioned already the Brahmārī Prāṇāyāma, we will do it today. Another prāṇāyāma, when we contract the vocal cords and make a little bit of this sound like snoring, is Ujjāyī Prāṇāyāma, which we have in level 7. It slows down the breath enormously and is very calming and relaxing. Then Bhujaṅginī Prāṇāyāma, this is a special technique when we inhale through the nose and exhale through the mouth; we will also do today. This prāṇāyāma has not only the ability to relax, but also, if something is on the psychic level, it is blocked from opening up. It is so gentle, yet so releasing of tension. And of course, that prāṇāyāma which we all practice in the beginning, Nāḍī Śodhana. Though we would usually think of Nāḍī Śodhana only as levels 1, 2, and 3 without Kumbhaka, because that is relaxing. But that’s actually not true. Because the Kumbhaka, which we have, holding the breath in level four, or actually in every advanced prāṇāyāma technique, we have the Kumbhaka. It’s a little bit like a cold shower. It’s best to activate your body and to make you warm. But when you are already freezing, you would maybe not want to do it. So this technique is important; Kumbhaka is important because it works on one of the five prāṇas. You remember, Swāmījī is now speaking about these different aspects of the prāṇas. It is called Vyāṇa. And Vyāṇa is very much connected with our nervous system. So the practice of Kumbhaka actually strengthens our nervous system. So, who is nervous or going in the direction of a nervous breakdown? That means very clearly a deficiency of Vyāṇa. Let us just practice a very simple exercise, which is given in our book also. Just sit straight for a moment. Relax your body, close your eyes, feel your breath, normal breath, and now, after the inhalation, hold the breath for some time comfortably, and then, after the exhalation, again hold the breath. Not too short, but also not too long. After every inhalation and after every exhalation, hold the breath without too much effort. And then maybe slowly come to the end. Slowly finish. Normal breath again, and feel your energy. Then open your eyes again. How was it? Would you feel a little bit? Cítíte to? So, Kumbhaka, holding the breath. Čilī Kumbhaka. We practice with all advanced techniques. But you can also practice separately, as we did just now. But not too long, not too much. Don’t go into excess. It is good to strengthen our nervous system. Then we have different ways to relax tension which has already built up. Mostly we do it just mentally. In every yoga class, you have one minute, five minutes, maybe ten minutes of some mental relaxation. And you know also the long mental relaxation, the Yoga Nidrā. This is definitely the one anti-stress technique. So if someone has already built up a high stress level, then simply do Yoga Nidrā for some time every day. That means either in the yoga class the teacher is leading, or you have a CD about that. And fortunately, we have so many nice recordings from Swāmījī. Sometimes, especially in the beginning, it’s not so easy to get the feel for this mental relaxation. So that is very good, because you really do something and then you really feel something. Especially for beginners, a very good technique. The only problem here is if you do it not really concentrated, and you do not really relax when you are supposed to relax, then you build up stress or tension. So you must also be concentrated in that, really tense and not really relaxed. But of course, most of us, we have a mantra. Mantra is such a beautiful way also to break down stress and mental tension. If we spoke about this before, what is the way then? Where to turn if it’s too much for me? Īśvara Praṇidhāna, we turn to God. Open our heart. Devotion, bhakti. He can. What is too much for me? For him, it’s definitely not too much. Na’ham Kartā. I am not the doer. God is the doer. Prājña. Prayer. It has such a relaxing function. Because, as we say in the bhajan, Abbāsanpediyā is the jīvanakā sabbubharā dumārā hatamā. Now I surrender my whole life, the whole burden of my life. I give all my stress to you. It’s yours. And when you really do it from the heart, it’s gone. So, bhakti yoga is such a beautiful way also to release tension. Bhakti Yoga is really a wonderful way to get rid of stress. So we should never be just too technical in this. Basically, stress is a mental symptom, and we also have to deal with it on every level. So I try to give you a little bit of an overview, because unfortunately now the time doesn’t allow us to practice all of that. When I have a workshop on yoga for stress management, it’s usually something like three or four hours. But still, we will now try to do a little something, and we will start with the dynamic relaxation. Please lie down now on your mat. Take a good breath and relax. Feel your whole body in touch with the ground. We will now always tense a certain part of the body in coordination with the breath. During inhalation, we will tense. Then, holding the breath, we will hold the tension. And during exhalation, we will release the tension. Go with your awareness now to the right arm. And now we will make a fist with the right hand, so that the thumb is inside, and the fingers press on the thumb. And now, inhale and tense the whole right arm, all muscles. You press the arm down to the ground, the elbow, the shoulder, the fist. And let it go. It’s a little bit of a problem with the translation now because it’s too long. I cannot hold it so long, so I will speak the whole, and then you translate. Okay, once more. Now, make a fist with the right hand, tense the right arm, inhale, hold it, and now, exhaling, release the tension. And when you release, of course, the hand immediately opens. Now we do the same with the left arm. Make a fist with the thumb inside. Now inhale, tense. Hold the tension, feel the muscles. And exhale and release. And once more, inhale, tense, hold it, feel it, and exhale and let go. And now, feel both arms. Feel the energy in the arms, the prāṇa. Make sure you don’t hold on to any tension now. With the legs, we will do like this: when we tense, then we will press the knee to the ground and draw the toes in the direction of the head so that all the back muscles of the legs stretch and the heel comes a little bit up. So now, right leg. Inhale, push the knee down, draw the toes up, tense. Hold it. And exhale, relax. And once more, right leg. Inhaling, tense the whole right leg. Hold it, feel the tension. In the same way. And now, let go and exhale. And once more. Inhale, tense. Hold it. And let go. Feel both legs. Make sure you don’t hold on to any tension. Now we will do a dynamic way of relaxation. And now we will do a dynamic relaxation of the whole body, but I will show it to you first, so sit down or go to a position like this so that you can see me. I will describe it gradually, then I will do it all at once, and then you will try it. A little bit, but not too steep, not like this, and afterwards you will just drop them. Then we bend the elbows, make fists with your hands again, and tense the arms also. Then we come up with the chest; the back of the head is on the ground. A hiždje. And hold it a little bit extended. And then, all of a sudden, you just drop the whole body. So I will give you now a demonstration of the whole thing. I hope this equipment will survive. So, the legs, the arms, the chest, the face. I did it once in India with 250 policemen, and it was like a small explosion, very impressive. So, please lie down. If someone has osteoporosis, then please, maybe it is better to avoid this. Especially make sure that the buttocks remain on the ground. That’s important. So now, bend the knees a little bit. Bend the elbows and make fists with the thumb inside. Now, come up with the chest. Make a grimace with your face muscles. Now, deeply inhale and tense the whole body. Strongly hold it, and now drop. Once more, bend the knees a little bit, bend the elbows, make fists, come up with the chest, make a grimace with your face muscles. You can bite the teeth if you want. Now, inhale and tense your whole body. Exhalation, three times. If any tension remains, let it go now. Okay. Now we will continue with a few āsanas. The first one is for the shoulders, an exercise which I guess you don’t know. It’s from our special program for the back. Hold with your right hand the left elbow, and with the left hand, the right elbow. Not the shoulders, the elbows, please. Okay. Now, the arms vertically up, and we do a torsion. That means now, during exhalation, the arms go in this position to the right, but the head rolls to the left. Inhaling, you come to the middle. And now, next press, opposite. Always the arms to one side, the head rolls in the opposite direction. You can try to really touch your elbow to the ground. And I guess you feel the beautiful stretch between the shoulders and the shoulder blades. That’s where there’s a lot of stress over sitting. Okay, next variation. Keep the hands at the elbows, bring the arms to the belly. Now, with the inhalation, bring the arms overhead, if possible, to the ground. And exhaling back to the belly. Continue a few times. A little bit deeper breath. Try to keep your lower back relaxed on the ground. Don’t arch it. And third variation: now we make circles, still holding the elbows. Bring the arms, inhaling, to the side and overhead. And exhaling to the other side and along the belly. Circling the arms horizontally. Do it a few times in one direction, and then also the other direction. Part 2: A Yoga Practice for Releasing Tension If you have the hands really at the elbows, if you let the arms more loose, it’s stronger. Then slowly come to an end, arms aside the body. Take one deep breath. Feel your shoulders. Now we will do a little bit for the back, because we said stress also manifests often as back pain. The most effective exercises are these torsions, for which we already have some variations in level 1. So, bring the arms to the side. If you do not have enough space, then you can bend your elbows. It’s basically just to fix the shoulders on the ground; the shoulders should not move. Bend the knees and bring the feet to the ground. First variation: knees together. Now, during exhalation, the legs go to the right, and the head rolls to the left. If possible, tilt the ground, keeping the knees together. And inhaling, come back to the middle and continue. Gentle, slow, harmonious movements. Gentleness is the key to releasing tension. The slower you do it, the more consciously you do it, the better the effect. Then, the second variation: stop in the middle position and separate the feet at least half a meter or more. The feet and the knees are now separated, not together anymore, please. Now both knees go, exhaling, to the right; the head again rolls to the left. Your left knee should now not touch the right leg. If it does, then your distance is not wide enough. Inhale, come to the middle, and then continue again. Make sure your head is always rolling in the opposite direction. These two exercises are just a class prototype for the many, many, many that we have, all of a similar type. And it is very good to release tension in the deep back muscles. Then slowly come to an end, stretch out the legs. Take a good breath and relax. Then please come up, sitting, with straight legs. One essential point, as everyone feels, is the neck, the area between the neck and the shoulders. So we will just do the neck exercises, which everyone knows. Importantly, the shoulders are down and relaxed. Exhaling, let the head sink down, feel the stretch in the nape of the neck. Inhaling, come up, make a long neck, and then drop the head to the back, and continue. It is very important that you first make a long neck, that you stretch your neck first. And then bend down so that you don’t squeeze your upper neck vertebrae. Then stop in the middle position, and now left and right. Exhaling, let the ear sink down to the shoulder. Inhaling, come up with your head, and continue exhaling to the other side. Who has problems sitting in this position can place their hands on the ground, no problem. These neck exercises you can do anytime, in any position, also sitting in an office chair. And finally, circling the head, exhaling forward and down, and inhaling, roll the head through the back. Sometimes this can be too much, so be careful, be gentle. Especially in this third variation, don’t force anything. And opposite, and come to the end, and please sit in Vajrāsana to do something for the back. Of course, Marjari is always good, but today we will do the stronger variation, Vyāghrāsana from level 3, the tiger. That’s the big brother of the cat, and it has much more power. That gives us a really deep breath. That’s one thing that we didn’t mention yet. We spoke more about physical tension we had manifested. This is something we didn’t mention when we were talking about the physical aspects where stress is expressed everywhere, but we didn’t say that it also has an impact on the breath. When you don’t have the right position of the chest, you restrict your breathing. And Vyāghrāsana is beautifully opening it up. So, those who know can do along with me; the others who don’t know yet, please, you can first look and then join in. Inhaling, we come up, like for Marjari. Exhaling, the hands are on the ground, with straight arms. And the left knee comes to the head, trying to touch the nose or forehead. Inhale, we look up and stretch up the leg. The knee is a little bit bent. And continue, exhaling, the knee to the head. Inhale, you look up, stretch up the leg. And continue in your own time with your breath. When your next time is due to inhale, then place the knee on the ground and come up, and exhaling, we finish. One remark: when we go up with a leg, we have the tendency to twist a little bit to the side, like tilting the hip, but we should try to avoid that. So keep the hips horizontal. Now we do a round with the other leg. Inhale. Exhale. Knee to the head. Inhaling, look up and stretch up. And continue in your own time, feel the breath. Then, with the next inhalation again, the knee on the ground, you come up, and exhaling, finish. Now, we will do one of these prāṇāyāmas which I mentioned, in Śaśāṅkāsana. Bhujanginī Prāṇāyāma. Let’s go into Śaśāṅkāsana, like the beginning from Kaṭupranām. Inhaling, raise the arms. Exhaling, come down. Come down and calm down. Elbows on the ground, forehead on the ground. Feel the stretch in the back. Feel the gentle flow of the blood and the energy to the head. Feel the massaging effect of the breath. And now we start with Bhujanginī Prāṇāyāma. Gentle breath. Inhale through the nose. Nadechněte se nosem. Nadech nosem, výdech ústy. Úplné uvolnění. Then with the next breath, come up, stretch the arms up, open your chest, then lower the arms, keep the eyes closed, and if you want, you can continue for a few breaths with this prāṇāyāma. It can be done, of course, in a sitting position, not just in Śaśāṅkāsana. We do it actually also in level 4 and 5 in Śuddha Vajrāsana and Matsyāsana. How are you? But that was not the end. Let’s get up. Tāḍāsana. Stretch the body, the arms straight, palms facing upwards. Inhaling, stretch. Exhaling, back. Then stretch, keep the arms straight, and bend to the side. Exhaling to the side, inhaling to come back. Try to keep the arms straight. Good. Let’s do something a little bit for the shoulders. You remember, first yoga class when you came to Yoga and Daily Life, first exercise for the shoulders. I will say puppet and strings. Someone is drawing up your shoulder and then dropping it. Inhale. Drop. As I’ve done. Inhale. Drop. Let’s do this with both shoulders. And now, a special thing we can do when you are really stressed. Do it with a sigh. Okay, let’s do the other shoulder exercise afterwards. Circling the elbows. Exhaling, the elbows touch. Inhaling, big circle. Inhalation, you feel the shoulder blades touching in the back, big circles with the elbows. Keep your back straight. And reverse. Okay, another exercise for the shoulder. As I said, the shoulders and chest. The restriction of the breath often comes from a slightly closed, tense chest. So, a very beautiful exercise is this. Keep the elbows always at shoulder level. Inhale. Inhale. Exhale. Exhale.... Exhale... Exhale. Exhale. Arms straight. Inhale and raise the arms. Cross them. Keep the arms straight. Feel the stretch in the spine. And exhaling back. Try to keep the arms and the hands straight. And now, close your eyes. Your awareness is on the breath. The breath is moving the arms, the arms are moving in such a harmonious way, full concentration, feel the harmony. Huh? That’s not so easy. So, another nice stretch for our back, our hip. Kaṭi Cakra Āsana from level 2. We can try to do it together immediately, or, if you don’t know, you can first observe. Interlock the fingers, palms to the ground. Legs apart. And always look to the hands. Inhaling, stretch up, look up. Now your back is straight. Keep it straight. Exhaling, bend from the hips and come into a horizontal position. Remain horizontal when you go to the side. Inhaling, go to one side. Exhaling, come back. Then, inhaling, come up. And, exhaling, release the arms. Take one breath in between, and now we do the other side. Inhaling, stretch up. Now, bend from the hip, exhale, come into a horizontal position, and try to remain horizontal. Go to the other side now, inhaling, exhaling back, inhaling up, exhale. We should do more repetitions, but for time reasons, we leave it with this one. Then, one exercise, which is the ultimate power exercise, gives us so much energy in no time. Also from level two, Utitlalasana, Kapālāsana. That is so strong, so powerful, because it is actually prāṇāyāma. This is a swinging combined with kapālabhāti prāṇāyāma. Kapālabhāti means a strong, sharp exhalation and a normal inhalation. I will try to give a demonstration, so I don’t know if I can do this with the equipment. I must see. So, first, inhaling, I go up. Exhaling, come down. Take a moment to adjust and to relax. Then, inhaling, I come into this starting position, horizontal. And now, a strong swinging. This is pleasing. And I let the shoulders and the neck loose. So several times I’m doing this, then I stop down. And when I’m ready, then I come up and relax. And when you do it ten times for something like this, then you will feel strong energy. And that’s something like this adrenaline or cortisol, no? You get here in a yogic way. Energy to cope with your life situation. And you feel strong. So let’s do it. Inhale, stretch up. Exhale, come down. Relax for a moment. Inhale, come into the horizontal starting position, and then begin. Strong and sharp exhalation through the nose. Let the shoulders be loose. If you get dizzy, of course, you can stop anytime. Now stop. Inhaling, come up, stretch up, and exhale. How do you feel? Can you feel it? Okay, again, for time reasons, we don’t do more repetitions, but you could. So now, come into Vajrāsana again. We have another very beautiful exercise. It’s a very beautiful exercise, which only those know who are already practicing level 4. But here it fits our topic, therefore I decided to present it here also. And this is Siṁhāsana, the lion. It’s a very special exercise because people who are not prepared think, "What is he doing?" Because we make the roaring sound of a lion, but it’s really a classical exercise. I will try to give a demonstration. Important in this exercise is that we do it from the belly. But if you do it wrong, and the voice comes out of here, then the throat will feel sore, and you can actually destroy your voice. So that’s the main point: you really make sure the belly relaxes, the sound comes from the belly, and the throat should not become sore. If it becomes sore, then stop. We sit in Vajrāsana, but the knees spread to the side. Hands on the knees. Arms straight, and you spread the fingers like that. The spine is straight. The eyes are wide open. And you look up there, and you take out the tongue. So, now, when we are in this position, then we inhale and make the roaring sound of a lion. And we are many, that would be quite some lion. Okay, let’s try. Inhale, spread the fingers, arms straight. Eyes wide open. Tongue out. And now, okay, check your throat. We will do once more, but only those who feel the throat is okay. Okay, let’s make some nice lines. Inhale, straight arms, spread the fingers, tongue out, and go. Good? Dobre. So, now for time reasons, we would of course usually also do some Kaṭupranām, but you know it till here, so we will not do it now. Do you want some short relaxation now? Maybe one minute, okay? Lie on your back. Just feel the effect of all these exercises which we did. Relax your whole body. Kṛk, ramena. And then, please sit up again, like for meditation. I mentioned in the beginning how wonderful and how strong the sound is. And so easy. Everyone can sing or hum or chant. So we will do now a little bit with the sound. We will do a Brahmārī Prāṇāyāma. And I guess many of you don’t know, therefore we will make a little bit of a test. Brahmari, that means black bee. If you want to study them, you come to Jadana Āśrama. All types of bees and wasps are there. It’s the sound of a bee, a humming sound. Like in Siṁhāsana before, the sound again must come from the belly. What we will do is, with the index fingers, we will plug the ears. In a straight, normal, relaxed position, of course. And then inhale. And while we exhale, make a humming sound, but not too gentle. It’s quite strong, actually. So, not like one beat, but like a few beats. So I will try to give you a demonstration. Plug on the ears, inhale. Could you hear something? I don’t know. Yes, okay. So let’s just try one time so that everyone gets a feeling for that. Close your ears and do it individually, one time. One time is one time, okay? Is it okay for everyone, or are there some questions? Did someone not understand? In the whole head. Every musical instrument is built around an empty space. And the sinuses here in our head, that make our head our musical instrument. So you listen to this inner sound, this inner vibration. This is also the entry point for the practice of Nāda Yoga. But we will not... Nāda means sound. But we will not go deeper into that. We will just practice. So what we will do... We will first chant together Oṁ seven times. This is very similar. Already, we work with the sound. Then, individually, he will do five, six, or seven times maximum this Brahmari Prāṇāyāma. And I have to explain now, because when you have the ears plugged in, you cannot hear anything. This closing of the ears is meant so that you really feel your inner sounds and are not disturbed by any outer sound. So you can do it five times, maximum seven times. You continue listening to the inner sounds, and you will be astonished that without humming, there is a lot. And after about one or two minutes, or when your arms become too heavy, then you let the arms down, but still keep your eyes closed, like a meditation. And then, after a short time, you will hear my voice again, and then we sing Oṁ together and finish together. So it’s a combination of chanting, Brahmārī Prāṇāyāma, and a short meditation. So once more. First, seven times Oṁ. Then, seven times maximum, individual Brahmārī Prāṇāyāma, the humming. Then you keep the ears plugged for one or two minutes, listening to the inner sounds. Then you let the arms down and continue the meditation until we finish together with Oṁ. Nádech.