Yoga for Anxiety: Meditations and Practices for Calming the Body and Mind

by Mary Nurriestearns, Rick Nurriestearns

Many of us face daily demands and overwhelming difficulties that cause seemingly uncontrollable feelings of anxiety and fear. When you feel this way, it's healing to calm yourself and to reclaim your sense of innate goodness and well-being. For centuries, yoga has offered a quiet retreat away from life's pressures and has enabled us to reconnect to our inner wisdom and peace.

Regular yoga practice has been proven to calm stress, enhance concentration, and reduce the symptoms of anxiety. This book offers meditations, mindfulness practices, self-inquiry exercises, and yoga poses that soothe anxious feelings and develop mental clarity. Before long, you'll free yourself from the anxiety and fears that hold you back and learn to live with a more open heart and resilient mind. Just as yoga helps you feel more at home in your body, the mental and physical practices in Yoga for Anxiety help you increase your sense of contentment in life.

Yoga for Anxiety is an excellent guide for anyone seeking greater serenity, peace, and fulfillment-and who isn't?
-Larry Dossey, MD, author of Healing Words and The Power of Premonitions

Genres: Health, Nonfiction, Self Help, Meditation, Psychology, Reference, Mental Health

232 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 2, 2010

Reviews

[Allie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Inaccurately named. There was only a smattering of yoga. That's not to say that there isn't valuable information and meditation practices, but that's not what I was looking for. Also there's a lot of pseudoscience which is the worst.

[Hilary · Rating 3 out of 5]

Literally the first half of the book is the history of anxiety, what it is, who has it, etc etc etc. That part of the book alternated between boring and stressful. Boring because it was stuff I already knew, or had more technical info than I cared to know... Stressful because there were "fill in the blank" type exercises that asked the reader to "Name" their anxiety and determine what "type" of anxiety they have. As someone who has suffered from anxiety for basically all of my life, these type of exercises seemed to provoke my anxiety by causing me to over-analyze, and then reanalyze my possible types of anxiety, sources of anxiety, etc etc. Another thing that did not always jive with me was that some of the descriptions and tips just did not seem to fit with "my" anxiety. I know everyone is different, but it did not bring me a sense of peace to feel that I was somehow abnormal compared to the "real" anxiety sufferers out there. I enjoyed the last half of the book, that focused more on the actual yoga for anxiety (meditations, poses and breathing exercises). The yoga poses included here are very easy, and the author stresses that anyone could do them. I found the last half of the book to be inspiring, and there were plenty of tips that I feel I could incorporate into my own life. Overall, the authors have a very kind and compassionate tone, and just really encourage the reader to try their best and that is all that matters.

[JH · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow, I can't say enough about this book. I will start by saying if you're looking for another yoga pose manual, this isn't it. Consider Relax and Renew by Judith Lasater for that. This book is a gold mine of yoga philosophy, interpreted in a way that is easy to understand and directly applied to anxiety and stress. That being said, anyone can benefit from this book. Who doesn't get stressed or overwhelmed, engage in negative self-talk, or feel down about themselves at times? This book offers suggestions for cognitive exercises and meditations based on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, although she doesn't directly state the sutra or offer the Sanskrit terms (my only complaint with this book). As a mental health professional, I will be offering the exercises in this book again and again. If you are interested in deepening your understanding of what yoga really is, and how it can help us in modern times, you cannot go wrong with this lovely book.

[Leigh · Rating 5 out of 5]

So helpful in coping with the financial, physical, emotional, sexual, verbal psychological violence that I have endured in multiple relationships over the past few years. Very healing, and would recommend to anyone who has been through, or is going through extreme trauma. You must take care of yourself.

[Rabbit {Paint me like one of your 19th century gothic heroines!} · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rating: 4.5 stars

Review coming home soon.

[Jen (bookscoffeedogs) · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you are looking for a yoga book, this isn’t it. It has barely any yoga, as in poses, at all. BUT it has other valuable practices and exercises that are more reflective or breath work oriented. A yoga book this is NOT, if you are looking for poses or a series of them to use in your life. It is more yogic practices than yoga if that explains it at all. Lots of suggestions and useful information, but very little actual yoga to incorporate into ones life. Three stars for the misleading title. Otherwise would have given it 4 for some valuable practices.

[Kris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it. Great resource, explains how yogic philosophy relates to anxiety and how to relieve the anxiety. Also includes poses and mediation portion. Well-rounded read.

[Kim · Rating 5 out of 5]

A go-to for managing anxiety. Great for teachers too. I did a whole series based on this book.

[AvidReader · Rating 4 out of 5]

Part of this book, some knowledge, is useful. 3.5

[Bookworm · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book is not strictly yoga focused on anxiety, but it does seem to have some good tips and practices. The authors take a fairly approachable way of discussing what is anxiety, what it does to our bodies and what we can do to work through it. Sprinkled throughout the text are personal anecdotes, meditation/mindfulness practices and discussions of sheaths, chakras and other aspects of our minds and bodies.

Although this is, for me, is more of a reference to keep than to read through, I thought it was a good book. I find a lot of yoga/meditation books are hard to access because they get into terminology and philosophy that simply bores me. A review on Amazon criticizes this book as mentioning God too much, and while that always makes me wary, I couldn't quite understand the criticism. God and religion do appear, especially in the personal anecdotes, but it wasn't a particular turn-off.

For more of a focus on the yoga, Relax and Renew by Judith Lasater is an excellent resource. This book provides some good practices, but I wouldn't take it as hard science either. But if you're looking for an accessible read without too much spirituality or discussions of chakras, energies, etc. this is good book to thumb through. Recommend library or bargain.

[Cara Patterson · Rating 1 out of 5]

Fluffy yoga philosophy. I thought it would focus more on yoga as exercise for soothing anxiety. Ordered it on my library's website; if I had actually flipped through it before starting to read it, I'm sure I would have realized it's not the book for me. It was short, though, so no big deal.

Contrast the section on "chakras" (energy centers in the body) with Lawrence LeShan's explanation of the problem with a lot of meditation teachers: they confuse metaphor and reality. No, there isn't actually energy trapped in my heart that I need to release to soothe my anxiety. This is why LeShan's book "How to Meditate" is so much better than this fluffy stuff.

[AnandaTashie]

Read bits and pieces of this, but it's written quite accessibly with mental / emotional / spiritual exercises, plus focus on breath, meditation, and simple yoga poses.

A couple of things I want to remember from the exercises:

- Explore your story of identity ("I am the kind of person who ___. I've always believed that I was ___. I describe myself as ___.")

- Remember unity experiences and profound connection experiences.

[Jill · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a great reference when I started yoga again after a car accident. I've had anxiety for a long time but it became fairly unmanageable after the accident. This book helped me to stop and breathe. It also had good exercises to lead me to let go of past thoughts and behaviors. I would highly recommend this book!!

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think this book could have been condensed down to chapter 6 and 7. The first five chapters are filler material. Chapter 6 gives you the yoga poses. Chapter 7 gives you some meditation. For myself that was all I needed to read. I read all of the antidotes that make up the rest of the chapters in this book and found that they did not help relieve my stress, but rather added to it.

[Teacatweaves · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book starts out as a slow read because of all the exercises up front. The real meat are the exercises and the guides to yoga techniques. Pick and choose what works for you!

[Liser · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent insights into anxiety as well as some calming yoga moves. This book really helped me through a rough time and I would recommend it to anyone willing to be open minded.

[Kanani · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gentle approach to anxiety with some useful tips for managing stress.