5 Yoga Asanas To Stimulate Your Nervous System
Yoga can help treat cough, stretch your body, cure menstrual cramps, reenergize the body and keep you fit. Yoga can also help stimulate the nervous system.
The next time you find yourself feeling stressed out, tired, anxious or just plain tense, try these yoga poses below to calm your nervous system and bring your mind-body network into a state of balance.
Supta Baddha Konasana
Reclined Bound Angle Pose, also known as Reclined Cobbler’s Pose or Reclining Goddess Pose, is a deeply relaxing yoga position that is recommended for students of all levels. This pose instils a sense of deep relaxation. It is not only a restorative posture but also a hip opening asana.
Steps
Lie straight and flat on the ground. Bend your knees to bring the soles (bottoms) of your feet together to touch. Relax your shoulders away from your ears.
Benefits
It lowers blood pressure, decreases heart rate and muscle tension, gives relief from fatigue and insomnia and reduces nervous tension and stress.
Viparita Karani
The Viparita Karani is a mild inversion and is also called the Inverted Lake Pose. Viparita Karani is often done at the end of a yoga practice, before the final relaxation pose (Savasana) or meditation.
How to:
Start by laying down on the ground. Lift your legs up towards the ceiling. Now, slowly lift your hips off the floor too, supporting your body by holding onto your hips using your hands. Now, gently push your body up as much as it would go, while keeping your shoulders firmly on the ground.
Why to:
Viparita Karani is known to diminish wrinkles and it can make you look younger. This posture will make your blood flow into various parts of your body that requires it.
Supta Virasana
Supta Virasana is an intermediate level yoga pose that gets its name from the Sanskrit words supta meaning “reclining” or “lying back”; vira meaning “hero” and asana meaning “posture”.
How to:
Start by positioning yourself into a mountain pose. Now, slowly lower your knees to the ground and pushing yourself back and down, sit on the mat, seating yourself between your two legs. Now, slowly drop back onto your elbows as much as possible. Now, If possible, go down completely until your hands lie on both sides of you and your head rests on the mat. Now, slowly stretch your hands up and back such that they lie on the ground above your head.
Why to:
Stretches the abdomen, thighs and deep hip flexors (psoas), knees, ankles and the arches. It also relieves tired legs, improves digestion and helps relieves the symptoms of menstrual pain.
Baddha Konasana
Baddha konasana is also popularly known as the Butterfly Pose because of the movement of the legs during the posture, giving the appearance of a butterfly flapping its wings.
How to:
Beginning by sitting with a straight back, bring the soles of your feet together and interlock your fingers onto your toes. Now, start flapping your legs while breathing normally. To intensify the pose, bring your feet closer to your pelvis.
Why to:
It stretches the muscles of the legs and is therapeutic for flat feet, high blood pressure, infertility, and asthma. It is also believed that this pose fights diseases and gets rid of fatigue. Consistent practice of this pose until late into pregnancy help ease childbirth.
Anuloma-Viloma
Anulom-Vilom Pranayama is one of several Pranayama or breathing exercises used in the practice of Hatha yoga. In the practice of pranayama, inhalation, retention and exhalation is used.
How to:
Start by inhaling deeply. Now, block your right nostril with your right thumb and exhale through your left nostril. Now, inhale deeply from your left nostril, through 4 counts. Now, block both your nostrils and hold your breath for 16 counts. Let go of your right nostril and exhale through 8 counts. Now, inhale from your right nostril and repeat the process. This completes 1 round. Do a minimum of 6 rounds.
Why to:
It is one of the most effective breathing exercises to puri
