Worry Thwarts

Mainstream therapists are catching on to what yogis have always known: Yoga is one of the best ways to ease an anxious mind.

By Melanie Haiken

Roemer and Orsillo aren't the only ones studying yoga's benefits for mood disorders. Alison Woolery, a doctoral candidate at UCLA and a certified Iyengar Yoga teacher, found that undergraduates at UCLA suffering from mild depression saw a significant improvement in their depression and anxiety symptoms after they were randomly assigned to a five-week Iyengar Yoga program.

Nowadays, experts are suggesting tactics for dealing with worry that are similar to what you might hear in a yoga class. Instead of arguing with yourself when you start worrying, which only makes the worry more persistent, you should do the opposite. "Think of worry as a heckler," says David Carbonell, director of the Anxiety Treatment Center in Chicago and creator of the Anxiety Coach website (www.anxietycoach.com). "What you don't want to do is duke it out with him." The yogic practice of noticing thoughts as they come into your mind but detaching from them is perfect training to keep worries in perspective.

Jack Kornfield, of the Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Woodacre, California, has a particularly useful meditation technique. As you sit, you bring attention to, and name, the many ways your chattering mind intrudes on your concentration. When you notice that your thoughts have once again turned to the next day's to-do list, Kornfield suggests you make the gentle observation, "Oh, planning mind." So when I notice my thoughts spinning into hyperdrive, I say to myself, "Oh, worrying mind." By acknowledging what's happening—and how ridiculous it is—I take away some of anxiety's power.

Learn to Let Go

None of this comes as a surprise to yoga experts. "Yoga has a sly, clever way of short-circuiting the mental patterns that cause anxiety," says Baxter Bell, a physician who teaches yoga in the San Francisco Bay Area and is the author of Yoga Rx for Stress.

Yoga's benefits come in two forms: Concentrating on poses clears the mind, while focusing on the breath helps the body shift out of fight-or-flight mode. "When you have a lot of anxiety, you're always on orange alert," Bell says. Because you never fully let go, it's almost as if your body has forgotten how. Yoga essentially reteaches you what a relaxed state feels like. Although I first turned to yoga for back pain, I come back because it reminds me what it feels like not to be tense. (See "Asanas for Anxiety" to learn which poses are most likely to help.)

Don't try too Hard

Of course, for us worrywarts, yoga has a paradoxical downside: We can even get anxious about doing it properly. I've spent way too many classes feeling my tension ratchet up rather than down as I strain to copy my teacher's elegant Halasana (Plow Pose) without falling over.

The solution is to keep it simple. "I tell my students that when they're anxious, that's the time to go back to basics," Bell says. Limiting your practice to 15 minutes or three poses might be plenty when you're feeling overwhelmed. And feel free to pick and choose, skipping anything that starts the wheels spinning again.

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