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Friday, June 8, 2012

Bikram Yoga for Anxiety and Panic Attacks

by Beginners Yoga



As a discipline, yoga provides many health benefits. Some of which obviously are physical, and other benefits of yoga affect our emotional makeup.
For those suffering from anxiety and panic attacks, being able to cure themselves naturally can often seem like a hope rather than a realistic outcome. However yoga, in particular Bikram yoga, can be extremely beneficial to sufferers.

Repeated panic and anxiety attacks can rewire the brain to the extent that the original causes of these attacks gets lost or is suppressed deep in the subconscious mind. Anxiety attacks are then triggered with the sufferer not really understanding why they are enduring these episodes, which in turn can intensify the anxiety and panic.
This establishes a cycle of repeat attacks that is very hard to break free from. In effect to stop the cycle of attacks requires some rewiring of thought patterns and Bikram yoga is the perfect exercise and meditation practice to do just that.
Bikram Yoga is a certain type of yoga that is very good at teaching us to calm the mind, and then strengthening it to endure the mental and emotional stresses that we encounter in our daily lives.

What makes Bikram Yoga a likely cure for anxiety and panic attack sufferers?
Bikram Yoga can initially be an extremely intimidating practice  – going to a Bikram class for the first time could well be the hardest exercise you may ever have done, either mentally or physically.
You look in the cosmic mirror and quite a few of your weaknesses and frailties are exposed and stare straight back at you. This can be a little tough to handle on class number 1, but it gets better.

Some of the postures in a Bikram yoga class will also stress you emotionally – they are designed to do that, to slowly and gently raise issues that are stored deep in your subconscious.  Some of these issues that we uncover during Bikram yoga classes are likely to be original causes of  these anxieties and panic attacks. By gently having this issues come to the surface practitioners have the tremendous opportunity to release these issues from their bodies and deal to them once and for all.
This type of Yoga class combines the physical aspect of exercise together with meditation – and it is so often said by yoga instructors that the harder or tougher you find the class the more mental strength building benefit you are getting from the practice.


So each time you come to a Bikram yoga classes you gain more mental toughness. Bikram training subtly forces you to face your emotional self, and to build mental strength that helps you manage and confront issues in the outside world. In doing this type of yoga you are rewiring the brain to think in a different way – and the more yoga you do, the quicker you are able to rewire the brain towards dealing with anxiety and panic.
Practicing yoga 4-5 times a week changes your thought patterns deep within your brain and subconscious so that nothing can interfere with your mind when faced with future anxiety triggers. The goal in fact is to eliminate these panic attack triggers from your subconscious completely and Bikram yoga is a powerful practice in this regard.