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I recently had the pleasure of being interviewed for the ‘WHY WE MOVE"‘ podcast by my friends over at So We Flow…
The main subject for our discussion was 'Preventing + Managing Stress' - though we also covered many other yoga and movement related topics too.
It was a fun discussion - I enjoyed it a lot and I hope you get something out of it too…you can listen via one of the below links.
Although yoga was practised almost exclusively by men for much of its history in India, in the West we tend to think of it as predominantly a pastime for women. And whilst the benefits of yoga are universal, here are the 5 main reasons why I believe that more men should be practising yoga.
Without wishing to generalise or resort to cliche, the majority of men (at least the ones I see in class) struggle with their flexibility to a greater degree than women.
This is probably largely due to their history of movement and exercise. It’s more common for women to have practised movement modalities such as dance or gymnastics in their youth and to incorporate yoga and other stretching practises into their training.
Conversely, most men have a legacy of participating in sports that place much less demand on flexibility - and often tend to prioritise strength building programmes.
Some studies suggest that there may also be a genetic component to flexibility (with men coming off second best!) and it’s certainly true that as we get older, our flexibility naturally starts to decrease as our connective tissues (muscles, tendons, fascia etc.) become less supple.
As a result, many men reach middle age feeling chronically ‘stiff’. Yoga is a great practice to start addressing this by training our nervous system to increase our ‘stretch tolerance’ so that we gradually become more flexible over time!
Another physical benefit of yoga is that it helps us to improve joint mobility, stability and strength, helping us to move better by developing greater control of our body and joints through full ranges of movement.
This has many carry-over benefits such as improving athletic performance and mitigating against injury…or simply keeping up with our children in the park (one of my private students, an ex-rugby player of 30+ years, was delighted that he was finally able to sit cross legged at a picnic for the first time in his life!)
Many of the practises of yoga also challenge and develop our core stability and once again this allows us to move more efficiently by developing ‘proximal stability for distal mobility’ - i.e. we’re able to transfer force more effectively from our centre throughout the kinetic chain.
And when we consider the improvements to balance and proprioception (awareness of the body in space) from practising yoga we have pretty much the complete package for moving with greater ease and efficiency.
It’s perhaps not an over exaggeration to say that we’re living through a mental health crisis. With so many environmental triggers - Covid, climate change, rising costs of living, social media etc. - many of us are increasingly struggling to maintain our mental health.
And whilst this impacts women at least as much as men, the way in which men deal with stress, anxiety, depression and other mental health challenges has led to a situation in which men are over 3 times more likely than women to die by suicide.
Society’s (and internal) expectations that men stay ‘strong’ and in control often makes it difficult for men to talk honestly about their mental health struggles, or to ask for help, with the result that they often resort to unhealthy coping mechanisms that exacerbate the issues.
Yoga provides many simple techniques, from mindful movement, to breathwork and meditation, that can help us to address both chronic and acute stress when it arises by shifting attention ‘out of the head and into the body’.
Moreover, simply having time out from the pressures of life, from the need to do, achieve, compete or perform can be a powerful antidote to stress by offering the space we need to ‘reset’.
Chronic patterns of breath dysfunction are endemic - reverse breathing, paradoxical breathing, mouth breathing…the list goes on.
Whilst this may not sound critical, the impacts of these faulty breathing patterns can in fact be significant and pernicious - elevated stress levels, increased heart rate (and lower heart rate variability - a key indicator of health), increased blood pressure, and inefficient delivery of oxygen to our muscles, cells and organs.
Yoga can help us to address these issues, firstly by bringing awareness to how we breathe and then by retraining breathing biomechanics through exploration of the many breathing and pranayama techniques that are a core feature of the practice.
Over time these practises will help to increase mental clarity, improve athletic performance and decrease stress levels, leaving us feeling calmer and more centred so that we can move through life with just a little more ease.
I’d say that as a general rule most men are not that great at taking care of ourselves…but yoga can help.
Yoga practice can be a great refuge from the constant overstimulation of modern day life and an opportunity to ‘down-regulate’ our chronically stimulated nervous system.
This helps to shift us from a ‘flight, fight, freeze’ dominant state by stimulating the ‘rest and digest’ parasympathetic nervous system response, and this has many benefits, such as:
Improved sleep
Improved mental health and wellbeing
Improved immune system response
Enhanced memory and cognitive abilities
Lower blood pressure
Improved Heart Rate Variability (a key indicator of nervous system health)
Improved ability to recover from the strenuous exertions of exercise and sport
So there we have 5 key reasons why I think more men should be taking yoga classes. The benefits of the practice are manifold and extend to all areas of life - home, work and sporting endeavours.
So if you know a man who might need a little nudge to take the first step on their yoga journey (or maybe that person is you?), then do point them in the direction of this post, or encourage them to get in touch to discuss one to one teaching sessions so that we can get them started on the right foot.
Today (3rd November 2021) is national stress awareness day in the UK. Over the years I’ve suffered, both chronically and acutely, from stress and anxiety and I’m all too aware of the profoundly negative impact that stress can have on our day to day lives….so in this post I share 3 simple tips for breathing your way to better stress management.
Management and treatment of stress is multi-faceted and yoga certainly doesn’t have all of the answers. However, many yoga techniques can have a profound effect on how we manage stress - and one of the most powerful (and free!) tools at our disposal is the breath!
It also doesn’t have to be complicated...simple is often (and usually!) best. So, below are 3 simple tips for breathing in a way that will help you to manage your stress response and bring your nervous system back into balance…
‘Noses are for breathing, mouths are for eating’, so the saying goes. Yet despite this, many of us are habitual ‘mouth breathers’ which can contribute to the level of stress and anxiety we experience by stimulating our ‘fight, flight, freeze’ response.
On the other hand, when we breathe through the nose it helps to stimulate the diaphragm (our primary muscle of breathing) which in turn helps to stimulate the vagus nerve (the vagus nerve passes through the diaphragm).
Stimulation of the vagus nerve has a major impact on triggering our parasympathetic ‘rest and digest’ response - leading to decreased heart rate, decreased blood pressure, improved digestion and sleep etc.
So simply bringing attention to your breath several times a day, and consciously ensuring that you’re inhaling and exhaling through the nose can really help us to rebalance our chronically stressed nervous system.
When we’re feeling stressed we’re often encouraged to ‘take a big breath’. However, ‘big’ breaths tend to move up into our chest and require activation of our accessory muscles of respiration - which can once again trigger the fight, flight freeze response.
Instead, think about establishing a light, slow and deep breath at a rate of 5.5 - 6.5 breaths per minute.
Observe your lower ribs expanding outwards on the inhalation and returning to centre on the exhalation and feel as though you’re gently drawing the breath down towards the bottom of your lungs.
This will further help to regulate our nervous system (as well as other systems in the body such as the circulatory system) meaning that we’re better able to deal with stressors and change as and when they arise.
When we exhale our heart rate naturally decreases (it increases on the inhalation).
Therefore when we consciously extend our exhalation we’re also exacerbating this effect and sending signals to our nervous system that all is well...once again encouraging activation of the rest and digest response.
So as you establish your ‘light, slow, deep’ breathing rate of 5.5 - 6.5 breaths per minute, can you also establish a rhythm in which the outbreath is 1.5 - 2 x as long as the inhalation.
This can have a profoundly relaxing effect on the nervous system - and focusing our awareness on counting the breath can also help to shift the mind’s attention away from ruminating on anxieties and concerns.
So there you have it - 3 simple tips to breathe your way to better stress management.
You can also watch the video above for a short guided exploration of the techniques outlined above - and if you’d like further help in managing stress or improving your breathing then please do get in touch today to book up an initial 30 minute chat.
Much of the information in this post is taken from, or inspired by, the work of Patrick McKeown - if the breath is something that interests you, I’d highly recommend checking out his books The Oxygen Advantage and The Breathing Cure (I’m currently working my way through the latter).
©2024 Matt Gill