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Helpful yoga?

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PTSDisaster

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Anxiety is my worst symptom and i've been having it everyday since I can remember. It's mostly continuous adrenaline rushes.
5 days ago I've started yoga practice in the morning (just watching yoga with adriene, 11-15 minute workouts) and I've been practicing every morning.

Now my question is; When does yoga start to feel like relaxation? Or like a helpful workout for mental health? Do I need longer workouts or multiple workouts a day?
 
I’m trying to think if I’ve gotten any creeping-helpful-things in my repertoire... and it feels like there’s something, maybe, half remembered? Something that I had to do for a long time before looking up one day and realizing it was a helpful component of my life... but I’ve got nada.

Everything I can call to mind that I use for fun / stress management / emotional monitoring & regulation / to blow off steam / ground & center / etc. is immediately like, wow. Or exciting. Or challenging in a bound & determined kind of way. Or leaves me in such a better place in my heart/mind, that even if I can’t do it regularly, I want to do it regularly.

But I can say that for exercise of any kind to affect my symptom-level emotional state I have to be doing hours of it, daily. Plus extra to manage spikes or increased stress. 15 minutes wouldn’t even begin to burn off the fire in my blood, or cold in my belly, or vice around my heart. Coming back from being sick/injured where I might not even be able to do 5 minutes, much less 5 hours? Has made that reminder particularly brutal. Because I not only want my vivacity! back, and I reeeeeeally want the balancing component exercise provides for my life.
 
Everything in moderation I guess. If your doing it everyday then you could try half hour sessions. Self regulate and see what you can handle. 🙂
 
I’m trying to think if I’ve gotten any creeping-helpful-things in my repertoire... and it feels like there’s something, maybe, half remembered? Something that I had to do for a long time before looking up one day and realizing it was a helpful component of my life... but I’ve got nada.

Everything I can call to mind that I use for fun / stress management / emotional monitoring & regulation / to blow off steam / ground & center / etc. is immediately like, wow. Or exciting. Or challenging in a bound & determined kind of way. Or leaves me in such a better place in my heart/mind, that even if I can’t do it regularly, I want to do it regularly.

But I can say that for exercise of any kind to affect my symptom-level emotional state I have to be doing hours of it, daily. Plus extra to manage spikes or increased stress. 15 minutes wouldn’t even begin to burn off the fire in my blood, or cold in my belly, or vice around my heart. Coming back from being sick/injured where I might not even be able to do 5 minutes, much less 5 hours? Has made that reminder particularly brutal. Because I not only want my vivacity! back, and I reeeeeeally want the balancing component exercise provides for my life.
I also have to exercise hours to get my symptoms less, I also started badminton, gardening, shooting arrows etc. But yoga seemed to be doing magic for some, so I hope I will get there

Everything in moderation I guess. If your doing it everyday then you could try half hour sessions. Self regulate and see what you can handle. 🙂
Great idea thank you!!

Thank you both so much for replying!<3
 
Anxiety is my worst symptom and i've been having it everyday since I can remember. It's mostly continuous adrenaline rushes.
5 days ago I've started yoga practice in the morning (just watching yoga with adriene, 11-15 minute workouts) and I've been practicing every morning.

Now my question is; When does yoga start to feel like relaxation? Or like a helpful workout for mental health? Do I need longer workouts or multiple workouts a day?
Yoga has helped me since I was a teenager after years of child abuse. Adrienne has a routine just for PTSD. Hopefully you should start to feel both a mental and physical release within few weeks. After a while you'll find certain poises really release a lot of tension for you. You may end up with about three go to poises that you will automatically want to do when you feel physical or mental stress. Even just 10 min daily helps a lot. I did yoga to help my body release stress, trauma and not feel so broken. But I didn't expect it to help heal my mind. It helped reduce anxiety, panic and flashbacks. Of course I do other things DBT, breathing meditation and listen to music for anxiety , but i still do yoga at 53.
 
Or like a helpful workout for mental health?
If it's helpful at all, many of the things I do to manage my mental health, and stay reasonably stable? I don't notice that they're helping...until I stop.

About a week or 2 after stopping, I crash, and can often track it back to letting daily practices like this slide.

For example, I never noticed a difference cutting caffiene, doing regular guided relaxation (apart from noticing that I could finally do it without being triggered!), watching my nutrition, daily exercise - they're all things that had a creeping impact on my overall stability. The kind of difference which, at the time? I really didn't notice. Because the change is so incremental.

But when I quit watching any of those daily habits? I notice that difference within a couple of weeks. And sometimes those crashes can be really nasty.

It's shitty, because it feeds the eternal itch to just not bother today, because, meh! But if I'm being completely honest with myself? Daily exercise, nutrition and daily relaxation in particular? I don't function very well without all 3 of those.

If you're tracking your symptoms or function in any way, or noting this stuff in your journal you may notice the change and have a more solid record of exactly what kind of difference yoga makes for you. That often helps longer term with the motivation. Because, yoga for many people is free if you do it at home, and has no unwanted side effects. Which is better than most medication alternatives.

Yoga for me had the added bonus that it taught me how to control my breathing, and I now use that skill to great effect on a regular basis - to avoid panic attacks, ground myself, and get to sleep in particular.
 
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