Yoga is the best exercise for the immune system. Yoga provides a solution to improve your immune system. As the coronavirus spreading all across the world, one has to be equally strong in physical and mental terms.

Here are the top 5 yoga poses to boost your immunity levels and helps to reduce stress.

YOGA POSES TO BOOST YOUR IMMUNITY

Sun salutation

Sun salutation or Surya Namaskar is one of the most significant yoga practices. It includes 12 yogic postures linked in a specified manner.

It helps to boost your health and immune system of the body. You can start practicing Surya Namaskara three times a day if you are a beginner. 

Benefits of Surya Namaskar 

• Regulates the bodyweight when performed at a faster pace
• Improves the digestive health of the body by massaging the abdomen muscles. 
• Ensure proper removal of waste from the body in terms of carbohydrates, sweat, and stool. 
• Improved digestive health promotes the effective removal of toxins from the body and establishes a strong foundation.
• Brings down sugar level in the blood.
• Ensures healthy menstrual cycles and reduce mood swing problems.
• Sun salutation has shown positive results in insomnia problems. It helps the practitioner to lower stress levels in the body and complement emotional balance.
•  Lowers blood pressure
• Strengthens muscles and revamp flexibility.

Moon salutation

Moon salutation or Chandra Namaskar is another sequence consisting of 14 yoga posture with each posture deriving different benefits. Moon salutation balances the Pingala Nadi in the system associated with the cool side of the body.

Practicing moon salutation helps the practitioner to calms the mind and overcome fear and anxiety.

Benefits of Moon salutation

• Since the practice of Moon salutation is associated with cooling, it helps to ease the stress levels in the body.
• Practicing moon salutation helps the individual to overcome fertility problems in the body 
• Regular practice of moon salutation ensures sound sleep and reduces symptoms of insomnia.
• Moon salutation helps to release stiffness in the shoulders and neck region. 
• As practicing moon salutation soothes the nervous system and thereby calms the body and mind. 
• It is seen that practicing moon salutation helps the women in pain-related issues during their menstrual cycle.

Legs up the wall pose (Viparita Karani )

This is one of the relaxing poses that can even be performed on your bed before sleep. The pose allows you to relax and consciously prepare your mind for sleep.

Benefits of legs up the wall pose

• Leg up the wall pose promotes the circulation of the blood in the body. Inverted legs promote fresh blood in the legs and relax the muscles.
• This posture relieves tension in the body.
• Ensure healthy blood flow in the system. 

Upward plank pose 

Upward plank pose strengthens your lungs. it helps to open your chest area and maintain flexibility at the same time. The alignment of the pose is important. It opens up your heart region and works on the legs and hip region of the body. 

Beginners can start holding the pose for 10-15 seconds as possible and take up to 3-5 minutes as progress.

Benefits of Upward plank pose

• Upward plank pose strengthens your shoulders and neck region.
• Holding the pose tones your core muscles and upper thigh region of the body
• It helps the practitioner to unlock energy joints such as ankles, wrists, neck muscles, etc.
• Stimulate secretion of thyroid hormone.

Matsyasana ( Fish Pose )

The fish pose needs a moderate side of flexibility. It proves to be beneficial for optimizing your digestive health by promoting nutrient absorption in the system.

The pose is a reclining back exercise practiced in the hatha yoga.

Benefits of Matsyasana

• Strengthens muscles in the back and neck region
• Tones your neck, chest and navel region of the body
• Promotes absorption of nutrients in the body
• It relieves stress and promotes blood circulation in the body.
• It helps in improving the metabolic rate of the body essential to fight in the flu season.

YOGA PRANAYAMS TO BOOST YOUR IMMUNITY

1. Anulom vilom Pranayam
2. Kapalbhati Pranayam
3. Ujjayi Pranayam
4. Nadi shodan Pranayam
5. Kumbhaka ( breath retention )

The types of pranayama can be read here. It is important to stay physically healthy and mentally stable at the same time to drive through challenging times. Pranayams like Kapalbhati helps to increase the immunity of the system.

Practicing Pranayam not only calms your mind but also develops a sense of awareness all around.

ABSTRACT 

To boost your immunity the foremost thing you can practice is to stay happy and positive. 

Here, the top 5 yoga poses for immunity

1. Sun salutation
2. Moon salutation
3. Leg up the wall pose
4. Upward plank pose
5. Matsya Asana  

The above mentioned five yoga poses are the best yoga poses for the immune system. They help you with stress relief during the pandemic. 

These 5 basic Pranayam techniques practiced under yoga for immunity. Pranayam can be practiced for 5-7 minutes every day. This will help you to keep yourself calm peaceful, and positive throughout the day.

Disclaimer: This content including advice provides generic information only. It is in no way a substitute for a qualified medical opinion. Always consult a specialist or your own doctor for more information. Jugaadin.com does not claim responsibility for this information.

According to the definition, stress is the worry or pressure that you face when you find yourself too much to deal with. But what I have observed is – stress is just your inability to manage your system; stress is not associated with the type of job you do, the boss is stressful, the peon is also complaining about stress, jobless are even more stressed!

Every other person is facing the same pressure, whether he is doing a job or being jobless. So what is the underlying cause? How can we become calm, stable, and eliminate stress from our lives? What is the way to manage our system? If all these questions are poking in your head then read on!

Manage yourself not your stress!

There is a fallacy in everyone’s mind that they can manage their stress with some yogic practices, or pranayama or meditation techniques. Why do we manage stress? I want to eliminate it, don’t you?

The yogic science is said to have a solution to every problem of today’s world, whether we want to know about yoga for weight loss, or yoga for back pain. We have solutions for everything in the primeval designed yogic practices. Practicing yoga can not only help you to deal with your physical inabilities but also works upon your mental conditions.

But before jumping into the solution I want you to see that yoga is not only about postures, the limbs of yoga involve Pranayama ( breathing exercises ), and Dhayana ( meditative absorption), along with Asanas ( yoga postures ).

So, here I’m discussing the most effective yogic practices from each of the above-mentioned limbs of yoga which include stress bursting yogic postures, Pranayama, and five-minutes neck practices which you can incorporate in your life and kick your stress out.

Yoga Practices for stress relief

1. Neck practices to release stress

The life energy and neurological systems sprig out in a big way in the regions of the shoulder blades and above. Neck practices not only improve the mobility of the cervical spine but also bring alertness, intellectual sharpness, and revitalize the muscles connecting the brain to the spine.

There are few simple yet effective neck movements you can try even at your office chair to blow-out out the circadian stress you have been through. The practices I’m sharing will only take four to five minutes a day, and you can distinctly see the difference in your ability before and after the practices.

• Forward and backward movement

How to do: stand straight, with your feet comfortably apart, keep your eyes closed and your arms and shoulders loose and relaxed and as you exhale bring your head down and lower your chin to your chest. Mark this as your starting position. Now as you inhale, gently bring your head up and take it back, again exhale and bring your chin to your chest. This completes your one cycle. You have to do three cycles of this forward and backward bending keeping your eyes closed.

Helpful tip: make sure the movements are as slow as possible. Concentrate on your breath with the movement. Treat your neck like a rope i.e. no stiffness of any kind but avoid sharp and quick movements.

• Side movement

How to do: Stand straight as you were in the previous practice, keep your eyes closed, and as you inhale turn your head to the extreme point of your right side. Now as you exhale bring the head in the front again. Again inhale deeply and as you inhale take your head to the extreme of your left side. The movement of the neck and the breath should be as slow as possible. Now as you reached the left side completely start exhaling and bring the head in front again. This completes one cycle. You can do three cycles of this sideways movement.

Helpful tip: make sure that the shoulders are completely relaxed as you move your head to the sides. Also, see if the movement of breath and the neck are coordinated, try to match the speed of your breath with the neck movements.

• Ears to shoulder

How to do: Continue standing straight and as you exhale take your right ear to the extreme of your right side shoulder, and as you inhale bring your head up again. Now, as you exhale take your left side ear to the extreme point of your left side shoulder, and as you inhale bring it up. You can do three cycles of this.

Helpful tip: make sure you bring your ear down and not your shoulder upwards. Your shoulders must be loose and relaxed. You can hold the stretch as long as you feel comfortable. Make sure you are really slow and gentle with your neck.

• Neck roll

How to do: Bring your head down with your chin touching your chest. Now as you inhale rotate your head towards your right shoulder, now as the head goes back, the inhalation should be complete, and as you exhale it will come down again. Now switch and rotate in the opposite direction. This completes one cycle. You can do the rotation three times

Helpful tip: make sure you coordinate the movement with your neck with your breath. The movement should be gentle and slow.

Benefits of neck practices

• Great way to reduce tension and accumulated stiffness in the shoulders, neck, and back regions.
• Promotes strong and upright postures
• Warm up the connecting muscles and improves joint strength and mobility.
• It helps to build neck strength and flexibility.

Child pose ( Balasana )

How to do: Child pose is one of the classic yoga poses that can be practiced by anyone from a child to the senior. Simply sit with your knees folded and big toes touching, arms should be completely stretched in front of you, with your shoulders relaxed and not touching your ears. Try to stretch your back and arms at the same time such that the hips touch your toes and you place your chin on the ground leaning forward at the same time. Take 5 to 7 deep breaths and relax completely in the posture

Significance: child pose acts as a rest pose in between powerful yoga postures.  It also works as a post-yoga posture as it helps to calm the mind and release the stiffness in the back, arms, and neck region. Some renowned benefits are

• Stretches the arms, neck, and back
• Improves blood circulation in the head
• Relaxes the mind and create a sense of awareness in the system

Helpful tip: if you are facing difficulty in bending, or you are unable to touch your chin on the ground, you can try to hold the posture up to 15 breaths, and gently trying to touch your chin or forehead on the ground. Make sure your breaths are as deep as possible and try to lean forward slightly more with every exhale.

Standing forward bend (Uttanasana)

How to do: Standing forward bend is one of the best poses for provoking nerve stimulation in the body. Stand with your feet together and bend forward such that you put your body weight on your toes and not on the heels. The buttocks and ankles should be in a straight line perpendicular to the ground, now touch your head below your knees with hands places on either side of the feet. Try to balance your body and hold the posture for fifteen seconds to two minutes with slightly deep breaths

Significance: the posture is best suitable to relieve mild depression, and stress as forwarding encourages the blood flow in the brain. Deep breathing allows the body to maintain the oxygen level required for cellular activity and promotes healthy blood circulation all over the body. The posture has the following benefits:

• Straightens the legs, and provide flexibility in the body
• Soothe the muscles connecting the brain to the spine, resulting in calmness and stability in emotions.
• Improves digestion by toning the core muscles of the body

Helpful tip: every yoga posture requires patience and practice to perform it as precisely as it should. If you are unable to touch your knees then all you need is practice. Your body will become more flexible and balanced with time, the only key is – consistency.

Yoga Pranayama for stress relief

The overexertion of our mind causes stress. Thankfully we have some most effective breath-focused techniques in yoga to overcome the constant strain of our senses.

Prana means life and Pranayam means the extension of life. By doing pranayama we extend the vital force of life. Performing basic breath awareness practices calms the entire nervous system and releases the blocked energies in the system. Pranayam helps to achieve high levels of self-awareness, reduce stress and anxiety, and quiet mental chatter. Here are some effective breathing techniques which you can practice at your home or workplace to give yourself an energy shot.

1. Alternate nostril breathing ( Anulom vilom )

How to do:  make Vishnu mudra by folding your first two fingers inwards and place your right-hand thumb on your right nostril and ring finger on your left nostril. Close your eyes and exhale from your left nostril completely. Now inhale from your left nostril and close it with your pinky finger. Now exhale from your right and then inhale from your right again, closing your right nostril from your thumb and simultaneously open the left nostril and exhale. This completes one cycle of breathing. You can start doing conscious breathing from five to seven minutes and extend it up to twenty minutes in one go.

Watch your breath: the main purpose of any breathing exercise is to consciously watch the way you are breathing, and how the body is responding to it. Consciously watch the switching time of your breath from one nostril to the other and make yourself aware at the time of breathing.

Benefits

• Calms the mind and eliminate stress
• It generates self-awareness and creates a sense of freedom in the body.
• Supplies oxygen to the brain and promotes growth of healthy brain cells
• Quiet the mind chatter and promotes life energy

Kapalbhati Pranayam 

How to do: maintaining empty stomach conditions are important to perform any breathing techniques as it generates more awareness in the body. Sit straight and keep your palms on your knees facing upward. Keep your spine erect and start breathing out consciously and quickly. Make sure the inhalation is not deep or conscious. Exhale every time by pulling your stomach in. you can start with thirty times a day and then increase slowly.

Watch your breath: make sure the outward movement of breath is complete and more conscious than inhalation. You can also perform Kapalbhati in sets of thirty, doing three sets at a time.

Benefits

• Practicing Kapalbhati regularly can help to handle anxiety issues, and calms the mind to the fullest.
• Kapalbhati is also proved to cure PCOS (polycystic ovary syndrome )
• As the focus is mainly on exhalation it removes the toxins from the body in the form of air and creates a quiet environment inside.

• Conscious breathing

Sit in a comfortable cross-legged posture and make yoga mudra. Place your hands on your knees facing upwards and close your eyes. Now simply watch your breath. Yes, that’s all! Conscious breathing helps to actually observe the movement of breath in the body. Since you only have to breathe make sure it is slow and deep at the same time. You can do this technique for as long as you feel like doing. You can join your emotions with each breath telling yourself that all the negativity is getting out from your body with each exhalation

Benefits

• Helps to let negative feelings out of your body
• The technique stimulates the nerves and relaxes the whole system

Yoga Nidra

Yoga Nidra is a conscious state between sleep and wakefulness. It is considered as the most powerful meditation process to maintain a balanced lifestyle. It can be performed by anyone and if you have some medical conditions that won’t allow you to lie down on the floor, still you can do it

How to do: lie on the mat (or sit on a comfortable chair), and close your eyes. Observe your body parts and feel that all the stiffness is released. Turn inward and look at your feet getting relaxed and slowly move upwards, making conscious observations of your thighs, core, chest, hand, back, face, back of the head, and feel that everything is getting light inside.

Benefits

• Offers to learn about yourself
• Release stress from the body
• Release the long-held emotions from the body and provides you a sense of freedom.