Stress Awareness Month: Finding your balance with yoga

MACON, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT) – Jessica Brown may a yoga instructor now but she wasn’t always.

“A couple years ago I was working a corporate job,” said Brown. “I felt stressed out all the time.”

The daily routine and stress was throwing her off balance.

“I was a little ball of energy all the time,” said Brown.

So she turned to yoga, a breath control and meditation.

“I tried a few yoga classes,” said Brown. “I found one that I fell in love with and it just changed me as a person.”

Dr. Grady Carter, a Psychiatric Hospitalist at the Coliseum Medical Center, says stress is good for humans. It’s meant to help us face the challenges in our lives.

“But if we can’t channel it right away, or if it builds up over stuff we can’t fix or can’t change,  over time it builds up and it can make us feel anxious and it can make depression worse,” said Dr. Carter. “Over the long run, people with chronic stress can even get sick.”

Dr. Carter suggests turning to yoga can help relieve some stress, which Brown says she sees in her own life.

“When you start to practice yoga you become more mindful of deepening those breaths,” Brown said. “Paying attention to inhales and exhales and when you do that, it starts to trigger your parasympathetic nervous system, putting you in that rest and digest mode versus that fight or flight that we’re normally in throughout the day, trying to react to. You just become more mindful.”

Brown now co-owns Hometown Yoga in Macon. She says ever since she found her balance, life has been great.

“I found myself caring less about the little things and just paying more attention to my breath and relaxing throughout the day,” said Brown.

Hometown Yoga and Coliseum Medical Center are teaming up for Yoga on the lawn Thursday night at 7 PM. It’s Coliseum Northside.

Dr. Carter also says a great way to relieve some stress is with social interaction. Surrounding yourself with loved ones helps a lot. If it gets really bad, he suggests seeking professional help.