Yoga for Emotional Balance

Heal your life force, find peace of mind, and relieve your depressive or bipolar symptoms.

By Liz Owen

If you have ever been in a situation where you feel tense, stressed, or unable to calm down, you have probably experienced the value of taking a few big, deep breaths. This is an everyday example of how yoga can dramatically shift our unhealthy, unsupportive emotions into constructive and helpful ones, and how it can help us have happy, content lives.

Yoga can help many symptoms of depression and bipolar disorder, including mood swings, fear, anxiety, tension, and lethargy. One way yoga helps is to release energetic blockages that are called granthis in Sanskrit. These are "knots" that form at the navel region, the seat of personal power; the heart center, the seat of the emotional body, and the throat, the seat of self-expression.

When we release these blockages, our physical and emotional layers open and energy flows freely. This energy, called prana, is the essential life-force of all beings. When prana flows freely through the body, we feel vital and healthy; we reconnect with others and become a part of the world.

This sequence of yoga poses and breathwork is designed to help you release your blockages, to untie your knots. Doing this sequence regularly can bring into your life a glimpse into our connection with universal energy and its abiding, supporting role in our well-being. By opening your body and centering your mind, you can balance the ups and downs of bipolar mood swings and change anxiety to calmness, sadness to happiness, and lethargy to vitality. You can glimpse your connection with universal energy and find its abiding, supporting role in your well-being.

See the first balancing yoga pose.

Liz Owen is a certified Iyengar yoga instructor and has taught yoga for over 17 years. Liz teaches in the Boston area and throughout New England. LizOwenYoga.com.

Hints for Practice

Have a yoga mat, two blankets, a bolster or other firm pillow(s), a strap and two blocks. Props can provide support so that your body can move into a comfortable stretch rather than too much stretch or strain in a pose.

When you use props to support your torso, be sure the height of the prop is comfortable for your back. Use a folded blanket instead of a bolster if less height under your back is more comfortable.

Hold active poses for 20-30 seconds each and try to repeat them two times to each side. You may stay in supported and resting poses as long as you are comfortable.

In all poses, breathe deeply and fully, with even inhales and exhales. If you experience pain in a pose it is time to come out--your body won't benefit from pushing through pain.

In the supported poses, you may close your eyes and cover them with an eye bag. If you are more comfortable with your eyes open, let them soften and gaze inwards towards the back of your head rather than reaching outwards. Look within, not without.

Easy Reclining Pose

Lie down with your spine supported on a bolster and your head supported slightly higher on a folded blanket. Bending your knees out to the sides, cross your ankles and let your legs relax. Support your thighs and knees with blankets to release any tension in your legs. Your arms should rest by the side of your body. After a few minutes, change the cross of your ankles. To open your chest further, hold your elbows and reach your arms over your head.

Inner Work: The Connection Between Emotions and Breath
In this relaxed position become attentive to the flow of breath through your body, especially in your abdomen and chest. Discover the connection between your breath and your emotions: If you are feeling anxious or tense your breath might be short and caught; if you are feeling empty and depressed your breath might be shallow and uneven. Try to balance the rhythm of your inhale and exhale, and observe how your feelings are affected. Your emotions may become smoother and softer along with your breath. Feel the knot at your navel/diaphragm area releasing, giving you a sense of personal power and self-worth.

Emotional Balancing Cycle

a) Mountain Pose: Stand with your feet and legs together, arms by your sides. Pressing your feet down into the earth, feel your spine rising and expanding upwards, and feel your energy elongating upwards through the crown of your head.

b) Upward Hand Pose: Keeping your shoulder blades moving down and away from your neck, inhale and raise your arms forwards and up towards the sky. Let your spine, your chest, and your heart feel uplifted and open from both the actions of your arms and the new space in your body receiving breath and life force.

c) Standing Forward Bend: Maintaining the elongation of your arms, chest and torso, bend from your hips and elongate your torso down towards the floor. Support your hands on blocks if they can't reach the floor.

Inner Work: Balancing Body and Emotional Mind
Let yourself enjoy feelings of vitality and aliveness as Mountain and Upward Hand Poses energize your body. When you move into Standing Forward Bend Pose, feel tension releasing from the backs of your legs, your hips, and your spine. Let your eyes and your brain become quiet and relaxed. As you move through this flowing cycle of poses, feel your mind coming to a place of stillness and balance; all the layers of yourself coming together in the center.

Supported Downward Facing Dog

Starting from an "all fours" position on your hands and knees, take a deep inhale and while exhaling lift your hips and stretch them towards the ceiling. Support your head on a bolster or 2 folded blankets. The right amount of head support will create a feeling of lift through your spine and quietness in your shoulders, neck and mind. To help take pressure out of your wrists and shoulders, ground your heels on a folded blanket if they do not reach the floor.

Inner Work: Open Body, Quiet Mind
Downward dog is a complete body pose, releasing tension by bringing stretch and openness into the legs, hips, torso, shoulders and arms. As you hold the pose, see if your mind can also open and release tension, responding to the new-found spaciousness of your body. Allow your mind to move into a receptive and observant state and quietly re-discover and reflect on your body's existence and vitality.

Expanding Warrior Pose

Stand with your feet 4 to 4 1/2 feet apart and lift through your spine, all the way to the crown of your head. Turn your left foot slightly inwards and turn your right foot and leg all the way to the right while your torso remains facing in the same direction, centered between your legs. Stretch your arms strongly apart from each other. With an exhale, bend your right knee into a right angle while your spine continues to lift upwards. Breathe deeply and feel your chest and heart expanding and awakening.

Inner Work: Awaken to The Presence of Life Force
Expanding Warrior brings a sense of strength and vitality to the physical body. Feel your body opening from its center to each side, right and left. Experience the broad expansion of your chest and the power that exists within it. Visualize the knot at the heart center bursting open and experience the vitality and love that exists in your heart.

Proud Warrior Pose

Start the same way as in Expanding Warrior Pose. Turn your left foot farther inwards and turn your right foot and leg all the way to the right. Turn your waist and your torso also, so that you are facing all the way to the right. Lift your arms up over your head, and while exhaling bend your right knee to form a right angle. Feel the strong and grounded energy of your lower body, and lift up through your spine to feel length and power in your chest. If this pose compresses your lower back, lean forwards until you are comfortable.

Inner Work: The Nature of Life Force Power
As you move into Proud Warrior, let prana build and increase in your body through an even and full flow of your in and out breaths. Notice the quality of this power: it is strong yet calm. It is the ever-present energy of nature that aligns us with the rhythms of the universe, giving us our balance, our movement, and our inner stillness.

Supported Bridge Pose

Place a block against a wall and place 2 blankets about 2 feet away from the wall. Sit on the blankets facing the wall with your feet on the floor on either side of your support, then lie back. Slide your body along the blankets until your shoulders, neck and head are all supported on the floor. Place your feet on the block and press through your legs and feet into the wall. Let your back muscles release and relax while your chest opens.

Inner Work: Open Your Heart, Heal Your Emotions
Backbend poses release tension commonly held in the chest and the heart center where prana resides in the body. They can help release built-up emotions, creating a path for physical and emotional cleansing and mental clarity. The more space you experience at your heart area, the more serene your mind and your emotions can become. Feel that the knots at the navel and the chest have now completely dissolved, creating space for inner serenity and peacefulness.

Supported Child's Pose

Sit on your heels and place a bolster between your legs. The edge of the bolster closest to you should touch your lower abdomen rather than extend under your hips. Bend forward and rest with your abdomen, chest and head on the bolster. Turn your head to your right and relax into the pose for about a minute, then turn your head to your left and relax another minute. If this pose is stressful for your ankles place a rolled blanket under them. You may also place a folded blanket between your calves and thighs to ease discomfort in your knees.

Inner Work: Honor the Changes Within
As you close your eyes and relax into Supported Child's Pose, let your mind witness your changing emotional landscape. Yoga is a subtle yet very powerful practice, and often emotions can shift within a practice session. Observe without judgment or expectation as you experience any shifts in your mind and emotions. Sense your own inner healing power, where emotional shifts emerge, and observe new patterns of thinking and feeling.

Shoulder Stand

Lie with your shoulders and your back on two or three folded blankets, your head on the floor, and your arms by your sides. Making sure your shoulders, arms and hands press strongly downwards, exhale and bend your knees into your chest, lift your hips and legs upwards, and place your hands on your back. Maintaining a comfortable feeling in your neck and throat, lift your spine, hips and legs upwards toward the ceiling.

Shoulder stand should not be performed by those with neck or shoulder conditions. Instead, try Inverted Cleansing Pose, a gentler version of shoulder stand. If discomfort in the neck or shoulders still exists, or during menstruation, perform Inverted Cleansing Pose with your hips flat on the floor.

Inner Work: Go With The Flow
Inversions can have a profoundly calming effect on the mind and emotions by reversing the flow of fluids through the body and by cleansing and massaging the internal organs, especially in the upper chest and throat. Feel the energy of your body flowing gently down through your legs and torso towards your heart and throat. Visualize blockages in your throat center washed away by this gentle fluid massage. Each knot you release opens the possibility for self-expression and joy.

Expanding Life Force Breath

Lie down on 1 or 2 folded blankets, depending on what your back finds most comfortable. Add another blanket so that your head is slightly higher than your shoulders. Completely relax your shoulders, arms, hips, and legs. Close your eyes. Breathing through your nose, deepen your inhale and exhale and move into deep, mindful breathing for five to six rounds.

At the top of an inhalation, gently and slightly constrict the back of your throat so that your exhale becomes resonant and full, with a slightly audible sound like an inner sigh. Inhale in the same manner, hearing an audible vibration that comes from the throat area. This is called ujjayi in Sanskrit, "Upward expanding life force" breath. Practice rounds of two or three ujjayi breaths, with a pause of a few normal breaths between rounds. Bring even rhythm and balance to your ujjayi breaths.

Inner Work: Let Your Breath Heal You
Balancing your inhale and exhale can bring you to an even place between the action of inhale and the passivity of exhale; from a "fight or flight response" into a "relaxation response"; between lightness and darkness. You can also adjust the length of your inhale or exhale to suit your emotional needs.

If your mind is overactive, anxious, or unable to focus, calm it down by elongating your ujjayi exhalation. If you are feeling sadness, lethargy, or are unable to move, increase the length of your ujjayi inhalation. If overwhelming emotions stop you from getting out of bed in the morning, try practicing 10 - 15 minutes of ujjayi lying in bed.

Deep Relaxation

After supporting your chest for ujjayi breathing, it's important to let your back rest flat on the floor. Place a bolster under your knees. Support your neck and head with a blanket. Close your eyes and cover them with an eye bag. If you are more comfortable with your eyes open, let them soften and ask them to gaze inward towards the back of your head rather than reaching outward. Look within, not without.

Inner Work: Believe That You Are Universal Spirit
In the yoga tradition, true knowledge is not the intellectual or book knowledge of the brain. Knowledge is the understanding that the energy you are made of is the same energy that creates and sustains all beings in the universe. Spiritual energy is one and the same, whether it is embodied in form of a divine entity or in the individual human heart. When you untie the knots that bind you, you experience self-worth, love and compassion, and the ability to freely express yourself. You become a beautiful, radiant Being who, as the yogic scriptures state, abides in the life-affirming experience of direct connection to Spirit.