How to get rid of the COVID blues?
Who else is annoyed by the current lockdowns? I definitely am!
Studies have shown that people all around the globe are not just annoyed but suffer from mental health problems including depression and anxiety. The problems are majorly caused by the fear of infection with COVID 19 and are decreasing wellbeing significantly (Sahni et al., 2021).
What if there is an easy way to boost your wellbeing with just a short practice each day?
But it can´t be that easy? Yes, it can!
The answer is yoga.
Studies have shown that yoga trains your mind and can have not just physical but also mental health benefits. But besides having a positive effect on your mental health regardless of Corona, yoga improves the sense of personal control and therefore decreases the fear of COVID 19 (Sahni et al., 2021).
Sahni and colleagues (2021) compared illness perception and wellbeing for yoga practitioners, other spiritual practices, and non-practitioners. Even though other spiritual practices also had a beneficial effect on wellbeing, the best results were found in the yoga partitioners group. The study also distinguished between three levels of experience with yoga. Long-term yoga partitioners showed the highest scores of wellbeing.
The study also showed higher levels of wellbeing even in the beginner group that started yoga during the pandemic.
What to take out of all of that?
Yoga practice even as a beginner increases wellbeing during the lockdowns by decreasing stress, anxiety, and depression. It can help with illness perception and emotion control which reduces the fear of COVID 19 (Sahni et al., 2021).
References
Sahni PS, Singh K, Sharma N, Garg R (2021) Yoga an effective strategy for self-management of stress-related problems and wellbeing during COVID19 lockdown: A cross[1]sectional study. PLoS ONE 16(2): e0245214. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0245214