Have you ever noticed how much better you feel mentally when you do yoga on a regular basis?

Turner explains that yoga is a psychology. The whole practice helps us to work with the nature and nature of our mind, our nature as humans, our emotions, and how they influence our behavior and minds. She also reveals how yoga helped her overcome low self-esteem. This course will help you reclaim the deeper roots of yoga, and not just the asana–the mental or emotional benefits.

Here are five ways yoga can improve your mental health, well-being, and relationships.

Five Ways Yoga Can Benefit Your Mental Health

1. It shifts you from the sympathetic nervous to the parasympathetic system or from flight-or flight to rest and digest. You will experience less anxiety and feel more relaxed. When you begin to breathe deeply, your body will stop fighting or flight and calm down.

See also Science of Breathing

2. Yoga helps you to build self-confidence and a healthy relationship with yourself. You build self-trust. Your unconscious mind tells your subconscious that you are worthy of this me-time, this effort. This is how you can exercise more and eat better. You can become more confident and more grounded in your self and your center and you will develop a balanced, healthy ego. You are more courageous and have greater willpower. You don’t fear difficult conversations and you know that it’s going to end well.

3. It will improve your romantic relationship. You’ll feel more at peace with yourself and your partner if you are more grounded. They will see you through the same lens of unconditional, compassionate love. You are less reactive. For example, you might know that snapping at your partner may not be a wise decision.

4. It makes you aware of your shadow qualities. Yoga’s yoking (solar and lunar, light and dark) helps us to be more aware of qualities within ourselves. How can we see those areas in our bodies that are tense, tight, or containing energy knots? This is where our emotional or psychological energy is usually held. Asana is essential because we work from the inside out. You can open your heart with a backbend and let go of the stiffness between your shoulder blades. At some point you will feel some emotional release. It is about being open to your mistakes and weaknesses, and doing inner work to change.

5. It can help you deal with family issues. It’s about accepting what I call sacred wounds and not blaming others. Only you can make changes. The only thing that you can control is your actions and behavior. Others will eventually be forced to behave in a certain way. The Warrior Pose is yoga. Yoga helps you to rise up and do your best.