5 Yoga Poses to Help Deal With Your Anxiety (and the Research to Prove It)

"When you're experiencing anxiety, it's as if your body is here in the present, feeling every single one of your emotions in technicolor, yet your thoughts are racing a million miles ahead to some imagined future. In other words, it's not pleasant. Anxiety disorders affect more than 40 million adults in the United States, yet many more of us experience chronic nervous system activation without a formal diagnosis."

"From a contemporary scientific perspective, anxiety is deemed increased activation of the body's stress response (sympathetic nervous system). This results in that familiar fight or flight response. According to the ancient science of Ayurveda, the experience of being anxious is associated with an imbalance in vata, which is one of three doshas, or body types, that is commonly linked with quick movement, airiness, and change. When vata is aggravated or unbalanced, the mind can feel scattered, restless, and ungrounded. Sound familiar?"

"Research suggests that yoga helps address the symptoms of anxiety through slowing the breath, engaging in gentle movement, and lingering in sustained stillness. Rather than targeting a single nerve, yoga appears to influence multiple pathways involved in emotional regulation, including respiratory patterns, brain health, and heart rate variability (a measure of how well your body adapts to stress and returns to calm)."

Anxiety provokes intense present-moment bodily sensation while thoughts race toward imagined futures, affecting millions and many without formal diagnoses. Contemporary science links anxiety to heightened sympathetic nervous system activation and the fight-or-flight response. Ayurveda associates anxious experience with aggravated vata, characterized by quickness, airiness, and restlessness. Both perspectives recommend steadiness: slow, rhythmic breathing, gentle movement, sustained stillness, grounding activities, and stabilizing routines. Practicing yoga supports multiple regulatory pathways—respiratory patterns, brain function, and heart rate variability—thereby promoting emotional regulation, adaptive stress response, and a calmer nervous system.

Read at Yoga Journal