Reduce Anxiety with Yoga: Simple Lessons from a BJU Psychologist

Bojun Hu is a psychologist at Beijing United Family Hospital (BJU). A certified yoga instructor, she takes a holistic approach to her practice, healing both the mind and body. In this article, she teaches you a simple trick to help reduce anxiety.  

Sometimes, anxiety can start from a thought like, “I’m not going to get there on time” or “If I don’t finish this, s/he’s going to be disappointed or unhappy.” Our nervous system that copes with stress and anxiety is not only chemically activated by hormones, it is also thought-activated. In these examples, anxious thoughts are connected to bodily sensations. Some people feel butterflies in their stomach. Some people feel tension in their chest area. Some people’s shoulders suddenly rise up to their ears.  Some people’s breath becomes quick and shallow. In anxiety, there are mental components, emotional components, and physical components. We can understand and treat anxiety from any of these different vantage points. Yoga asana practice is interesting because it can approach anxiety from a physical point of view. That is, if you change your bodily state, you can help change your mental and emotional state. For example, when you’re anxious, you can stand in front of a chair and bend down so that the skin on your forehead is moving towards your chin and pressing into the seat of the chair; your forearms are next to your head with your palms facing up.

You can stay there for 30 seconds or more.  When you come up, do so slowly with your head coming up last. You will already feel a difference. Maybe the things that you were worried about or thinking about won’t be as nagging as before, and maybe you can now take a moment to step back and assess what is important in this moment. You can ask, “What is the situation; what is possible for me to do, and how can I move forward?” 

It helps to take a pause between the stimulus (i.e. “there isn’t enough time”) and the response (i.e. “I’m getting more and more anxious”) to collect yourself so that you can make a better choice. In that way, doing a yoga asana and taking a pause can give a momentary sense of freedom. Something as simple as that can help.

Bojun Hu is our new Psychologist. She speaks English and Mandarin. To make an appointment with her, please call the BJU Service Center at 4008-919191.

• Not sure why the name Bojun Hu is so familiar? It's because we introduced you to her last week. Remind yourself here.

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