I’m very pleased/proud/relieved (delete as appropriate!) to announce that after more than two years of writing, filming and editing, we’re finally ready to launch our fancy new online course Yoga for Stressed People! And until the end of January 2017, you can use the discount code EARLYBIRD to get an amazing 75% discount.
So – what’s it all about?
Well, first of all, we have to recognise that stress is a 21st century epidemic – in 2015/16, the UK lost 11.7 million working days to stress, depression and anxiety. At my practise, i see this every day – patients who are stressed out and burnt out.
If you’re stressed, you might notice that you’re constantly on edge, or that you’re finding it hard to switch off in the evening. You might find that you’re not sleeping very well, or that you keep having arguments or taking comments the wrong way.
Those are all signs of chronic stress.
We’re genetically designed to cope with acute stress, the adrenaline rush of being chased by a sabre toothed tiger. It sets off a flight or fight reaction. The levels rise quickly and also drop again afterwards.
But chronic stress is different, it’s related to a different hormone, cortisol. Chronically raised cortisol levels make your central nervous system fire constantly. They affect your heart rate, blood pressure and muscle tone. They make it hard for you to slow down at the end of the day and get off to sleep, and hard for you to recover after exercise – and increase your risk of heart disease, obesity and exhaustion.
Multiple studies have shown that yoga can reduce stress, improve sleep, reduce high blood pressure and even help with aches and pains. But for many people, the idea of going to a yoga class as a complete beginner is a bit offputting. This is why we’ve created Yoga for Stressed People, a course in three parts.
Part 1 is the science that underpins the programme. In this section, over some animated videos, I explain what stress is all about – because stress isn’t all bad, and it’s important to be able to recognise its positive sides as well as its negative sides. We’ll be looking into how it affects your health and your brain, and how and why yoga can help.
In Part 2, we get into the practical side – going through the yoga poses, initially in slow time so that you really get the hang of what you’re doing and why, and then pulling this together into a 5-minute morning routine. Because mindful consistency is important, we’ve designed a tracking sheet to fill in every time you do the routine, so that you note down when you’ve done it, and what your mood is like before and after, so that you can track your results.
And then, in Part 3, we look at when you should do the routine, and we’ll look at short- and long-term strategies for stress control. We go through how to recognise acute flare-ups of stress and give you a first-aid kit of techniques to help you deal with them in the short term. And for the longer term, we’ll talk about other factors that can affect your stress levels, and give you some tips on how to leverage your nutrition, hydration, sleep and exercise to make your yoga routine even more effective.
Yoga for Stressed People is designed for beginners, so no headstands here! Instead, we’ve put together a simple routine that you can do at home with minimal equipment. There’s advice and guidance on how to make the routine work for you, as well as plenty of the science behind the poses so that you not only know what to do, but why you’re doing it.
Want to try it? Click here to sign up – and don’t forget to use the discount code EARLYBIRD when you get to the payment page, to get your 75% off!