Is Hot Yoga Your Emotional Rescue?
How about those emotional hot yoga reactions?
Nothing gets you more deeply and more quickly into healing mode than a good hot yoga class.
But you many not know that you're about to transform yourself emotionally as well as physically during each hot yoga class.
If you're practicing hot yoga (or one of Jaime’s nutritional programs) be prepared for some emotional shifts as your actual body chemistry improves. Yes, it does improve, even if it doesn’t feel so good at first.
What causes the weird emotional reactions you might feel during hot yoga?
Simply put, during hot yoga, you are eliminating toxins that affect the brain. The end result can include clearer thinking, better focus, more joy in your life as you release deep-seated traumas and emotional wounds that you didn’t even know you were still harboring.
What are some of the emotional toxins you might be releasing during hot yoga?
Emotional toxins are feelings or beliefs that block healing. Examples are feeling unworthy, unloved, incompetent, stupid, ugly, unfit or unlovable. Other favorites include fear, worry, anger, resentment, guilt. These emotions can be every bit as toxic as pesticides or heavy metals or poor diet.
How does emotional healing work in the body?
Physically-linked Emotional Reactions: Some emotional toxins are linked to physical toxins and impaired body chemistry. An unhealthy body sends negative messages to the brain. These may be experienced as feelings of fear, anxiety or unworthiness.
Toxic metals can directly affect neurotransmitters and parts of the brain associated with anger, fear and other emotions. Iron, for example, is known to settle in the amygdala, an area of the brain associated with anger.
As physical toxins are eliminated, emotional states will change. As health improves, the body sends positive messages to the brain. An emotional crisis may occur as it becomes more difficult to hold onto negative feelings and beliefs.
Energy-related Reactions: Energy is needed to feel your feelings, even depression. Supply more energy and you may feel those feelings more acutely before they release, In fact, hot yoga may be enhancing your energy and awareness of feelings you have suppressed. Once old feelings surface, they usually resolve quickly on their own. The brain, like the body, can be self-healing provided it is functioning correctly
Completion Reactions: Small children often cry hard when they fall down. Lucky them! They ‘work through’ the trauma in ten minutes and soon they're laughing as if nothing happened. They're not schizophrenic; they're emotionalluy healthy. This is the proper way to handle a trauma. If energy is low or if healing is interrupted for some reason (“Big boys don’t cry!”), a residue of the experience remains and can develop into exaggerated fear or neuroses. As hot yoga boosts your energy, you may be calling to the surface the residues of unhealed traumas.
Decompensation Reactions: Certain attitudes and behaviors are compensations for ill health or low energy. As hot yoga practice pushes you along, those old choices that don’t serve you may no longer be needed and may disappear suddenly. A surprising shift may occur, often accompanied by an insight about yourself or your world – what I call the AHA Moment.
An emotional toxin can be a major stumbling block that stops the healing process until you’re ready to address it. Hot yoga can be an excellent support to work out any emotional wounds that may be holding back a more complete physical healing.
Simple adjustments to support your reactions. Sometimes, a simple replacement of a toxic mineral with a more physiological mineral, or the correction of a simple enzyme system of the body, can work wonders. For hydration and replacement more vital minerals, I recommend Concentrace Mineral Drops in your water when you practice hot yoga.
Stay tuned - More to come about hot yoga and the physical, emotional, and spiritual reactions you may experience all throughout your practice. And comment below to share an emotional reaction you've had in hot yoga class.
Rhonda Uretzky, E-RYT
Reader Comments (4)
Yes, it has. Doing hot yoga has been. Every time I finish class, I experience its benefits. Overall, just a general feeling of well-being...is the most pronounced benefit.
What I find fascinating is sometimes in class I get this overwhelming feeling, "OMG I hate this, I'm never coming back!" And then of course, the next day I feel great and look forward to the next class. I was thought this was just mental--but maybe the cause is due to one of the reactions Rhonda mentions. I try to use that sign, "NO SNIVELING", as a mantra when I get discouraged or upset. I had to look up the definition first--but I am totally guilty of a snivel every now and then...
Here's another good mantra, Laura (especially in hot yoga class): Dont Think, Dont Think, Dont Think, Dont Think, Dont Think, Dont Think.....! I love this one even though of course, you get what you focus on....so another way of answering the mindfrick in hot yoga might be to say, "Thanks for sharing; over and out!."
Laura- I love your comment. I also have classes where I think of how I am so uncomfortable I am never coming back, then the next day when I catch myself craving more hot yoga I just laugh at myself :)