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Why Turning To Yoga Can Help You Get Through A Painful Divorce

By Heather Redwood
Updated March 7, 2017

Let’s be honest; picking yourself up after a difficult situation is tough. After a particularly rough divorce, picking up the pieces of your life and finding the inner strength to muddle through the everyday routine of your new surroundings can take a toll. This is when it is most important to find ways to keep you mentally and physically healthy.

You will want to think about what is truly most important in life. You will hopefully come to the conclusion that you and your health are the most important things to concentrate on, first and foremost. This is true for all scenarios, even if you have children who depend on you. You can provide them and yourself the world if you are keeping yourself physically and emotionally fit.

There won’t be one cure-all to help ease the pain from a trying time. Keeping family close, leaning on your friends, and keeping your mind, body and spirit healthy are great ways to start on the road to recovery and finding yourself. Keeping yourself healthy starts with a concerted effort on your part to commit to being healthy. A great place to start is getting into a routine of yoga.

A Healthy Routine For Your Mind And Body

Having any kind of routine is a great way to get back on track after an unfortunate life event. Fitting physical fitness into your daily routine is also key. Many people overlook yoga as a viable option for their daily exercise, but it is, in fact, an amazing total body workout.

Yoga can give you a great cardio workout and is a relatively safe exercise, as you are less likely to be injured than with other types of workouts. Keeping your physical self healthy and active is so important to your whole well-being and has an amazing domino effect to your emotional well-being. Get on your yoga mat at least once a day, whether just for a quick morning stretch or for a whole long yoga session. Adding in a bit of physicality to your day gets you into a healthy routine.

Get Up & Go!

Once you have mastered getting on a yoga mat as part of a routine, it’s time to start getting out and about. Having a reason to get out of the house—besides work—is an excellent way to perk you up. What better reason to head out and about than a yoga class!

If you don’t already have a yoga class you regularly frequent, ask your friends for recommendations, or just head to the nearest gym or community center. While you can definitely do yoga at home, and you should get on the mat as frequently as possible to keep yourself centered and grounded, going to a specific yoga class weekly or bi-weekly is another great way to have some routine in your life when everything else seems so chaotic.

Add New Yoga Friends To Your Group

Another great reason to head to a dedicated yoga class each week—you can make new friends! Sometimes it can be uncomfortable talking about your divorce with your friends who might still be friendly with your ex. Or perhaps you just want to surround yourself with people who are unaware of the complications in your life and just want to escape for a bit.

Making new friends at your local yoga class is a great way to do this. Invite everyone for coffee after class, or plan to meet up with some of them on the weekends. You never know who you might meet! If you go to yoga with one of your close friends, why not expand the friend circle and add some new friendly faces to your friendship group.

Clear Your Mind For Your Own Sanity

The mental clarity that you can find with daily and weekly yoga sessions can do wonders for your mental acuity. Freeing your mind of any worries during a yoga session allows your whole body to relax.

This physically relieves any tension you are carrying from the stress of the divorce and gives you a break from thinking about everything. During yoga you don’t have to talk or think or stress; just clear your mind, stretch your body and let your spirit be free.

After a good yoga session you will feel more relaxed and ready to face the day or any sad memories that come up. You will feel more mentally equipped to deal with things. An added bonus will be your new yoga friends that you can talk things through with over coffee to continue helping your mental health!

Let Oxygen And Endorphins Surge

Yoga is technically a mind-body therapy, according to the University of Maryland Medical Center. Categorizing this exercise as a mind and body therapy is perfect because of the complete duality of the exercise. Take, for instance, the breathing techniques that are so important to yoga. Your brain receives more oxygen during yoga, which increases blood flow to all of your body parts.

This not only keeps you energized and awake, but helps your body function at optimum levels. This is exactly what you need when you are feeling otherwise run down from the stresses of divorce.

The other feel-good reaction that is occurring in your body while you practice yoga is the release of endorphins. Physical activity naturally sends endorphins racing through your body, lifting your mood with a physical reaction, all just by breaking a sweat!

Stretch It Out

Yoga involves so much stretching of the body. There are incredibly intricate poses as well as easier poses for the beginner yogi. The more you stretch, the more flexible you become. The more flexible you become, the more exercise and activities you can participate in. The more you participate in, the better you feel! This is back to those endorphins, of course.

There are yoga poses for different life situations, too. For instance, there are plenty flexible, adventurous ones in the bedroom. Heart opening poses such as camel pose, turn-to-yoga-to-help-get-through-a-painful-divorce-pin wheel pose, cobra pose or triangle pose all open up your chest and back to allow good juices to flow literally with increased blood flow and endorphins and metaphorically by opening your heart to allow it to mend.

Be Your Most Confident Self

As you can see, yoga has the ability to do amazing things for your mind and body. Clearing your mind from the stress of divorce, finding new friends to help you through the tough times and getting physically active can all help you through this chapter of your life.

Your body image can also improve, giving you the confidence mentally and physically to get back on your feet and move on through this trying time. Having a healthy routine, including daily yoga, and having a place to meditate and clear your mind reminds you daily that you are so in charge of yourself, your health and your happiness. Yoga will help you be more willing to try new things, opening you up and readying you for a lifetime of a million possibilities.

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Table Of Contents

Katherine Hurst
By Heather Redwood
Heather Redwood graduated from Penn State University with a Speech Communication degree, and specializes in communication therapy. She has logged over 15,000 hours in one-to-one sessions with men and women, helping them to cope with codependency issues and love and sex addiction. She also specializes in online dating and marriage counselling.

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