Yoga Your Way to a Better Work-Life Balance
Too many of us put off any time of self-care because we are too busy at work and have too many responsibilities and obligations once we’re off the clock. Yoga can offer deep self-care, but when do we find the time to practice? How about at the office? You don’t have to have 90 minute stretches to get the mental and physical benefits of yoga. In fact, it’s extremely helpful in many ways to break up that time into smaller sessions throughout the day.
If you are looking for a way to have a more balanced life, which means enjoying both work and play more, put down your smartphone and pick up your yoga mat on your breaks. You can get some great stretches in during a 10-minute break. And it will really be a break—unlike gossiping around the water cooler or eating a bag of chips from the vending machine.
Doing yoga at work, whether your company offers classes on-site or not, does much more for you than make you a more productive worker. It brings you a deep peace and helps you deal with the stressors of life easier. In other words, it helps you balance your work and life better. Here’s how:
Makes You More Positive
Yoga naturally lowers depression and anxiety. When you are consistently happier, you can deal with any upsets in your work and life easier, with less reaction and stress.
Promotes Better Sleep
Most of us don’t get the amount or quality of sleep we need to rejuvenate, so we are ready for the day ahead. The effects of sleep deprivation are a vicious cycle—we overreact more quickly, we make poor decisions, and we devalue our relationships. Yoga promotes a more restful sleep so you can break this cycle.
Improves Self-Confidence
When you take a close look at your life, you may realize you tolerate a great deal that you are unhappy about. Much of the time we tolerate situations because we don’t have the confidence to make the changes needed. Yoga builds our self-confidence so that we are more easily able to stand up for ourselves and take chances on our dreams, rather than living small and under someone else’s vision for our life.
Helps you honor yourself It can be tough to stop working when there’s so much to do. People in the West work more hours now than ever before, and we aren’t better for it. Yoga develops a stronger sense of honor for yourself so that you can delineate more easily between work time and lifetime. At the end of the day, life is about much more than work, and yoga helps us take advantage of everything life has to offer.
