YoGA FoR AnGeR MAnAGeMent

Yoga for Anger Management | 29
HOW YOGA WORKS
FOR ANGER MANAGEMENT
In the last two Chapters we have seen that why anger is a
natural phenomena and a natural emotion that has several
bad consequences. You have also seen that there are certain
parts of the brain which can help us to regulate our control
when we want to get angry and whether we should get angry or
not. Now we will look at different Yoga practices and see how
through the practice of yoga we can gradually calm down the
mind and regulate our anger responses. For those of you who
are familiar with yoga practices, you would know that there
are several practices. There are Yoga Postures called Āsanas.
There are cleansing practices called Kriyās and there are voluntarily
regulated breathing practices called Prāṇāyāmās and
Meditation. I am going to tell you a bit about the philosophy
of yoga. The scientific research about how each of these practices
(with one or two examples of each) help us in regulating
anger.
Let us take physical postures to begin with. Anyone who
has started practicing yoga, you may remember as a first time
practitioner in doing yoga posture your body tends to rebel.
There are certain muscles which are never used for example,
when we bend forward and try to touch our toes and those
muscles send the signal to the brain that they have been
stretched and this message is indeed almost like a message
Yoga in Education for Total Personality Development SERIES - 8