The Yoga Guide

Prenatal Yoga to Reduce Your Stress

Exercising with a prenatal yoga DVD is a great way to reduce your stress levels and get you more in-tune with your baby. While a wonderful time in your life, pregnancy can also be stressful time both on your body and your mind. Your body goes through a lot of changes as you are pregnant, not the least of which is carrying around a whole lot more weight. Doing the exercises on a prenatal yoga DVD can help ease some of those aches and pains that come with pregnancy. Pregnancy can also be mentally stressful. I know that while I was pregnant, I worried about the health and safety of my baby a lot. So how can a prenatal yoga DVD help you get rid of some of that stress?

One of the best ways is through learning to control your breath. All throughout your prenatal yoga DVD, you will be told to focus on your breath, to pay attention to your breath, to listen to your breath. Often the first exercise is one where you sit and focus only on your breathing, on relaxing your breathing and doing something that we in western culture rarely do, breathing deeply and fully. It is a focused, controlled breathing that allows you to focus and calm your mind and body.

Another great stress relief that a prenatal yoga DVD teaches is clearing your mind. Part of any good yoga practice is learning to quiet your mind. If you are fully present in your yoga practice, your mind will become still. This takes practice and patience, but it can be done. We tend to get caught up in our minds a lot and a good DVD will teach you how to get out of your mind and simply focus on your body and it's movements.

And finally, learning to relax your body is another good stress relief that a prenatal yoga DVD provides. This comes both in the form of the great stretching that yoga provides your body and in the relaxation time that comes at the end. Yoga in general is great for stretching your body and with that stretching comes relaxation to those muscles. It helps loosen tight muscles and keep you limber. At the end of a prenatal yoga DVD, you will find a relaxation exercise that helps you fully relax every muscle in your body. But only if you allow yourself to fully relax. This is a great way to help the stress of a hectic day just melt away.