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Men, if you’re anything like me you sacrifice eight or more hours per day working your butt off to provide a life for you and your loved ones. Some weeks are great, you feel energized, you had an easy week at work, nothing out of the ordinary came crashing down and causing you a whirlwind of stress, anxiety, and uncontrollable emotions. However, some weeks are hell, when everything that can possibly go wrong, does. This is life, or least this is the life we’ve normalized in our modern world.
As men, we are told we need to hold it together. Someone asks, “how ya doing?” And we give some unthoughtful reply such as: good, great, I’m doing okay. But you aren’t great. In fact, you’re miserable. Your boss is on your case about projects a, b, and c. Your wife is upset because you haven’t had the energy to take her out to dinner and keep the spark in the relationship. The kids want to know when you’re going to take them on that trip you’ve been promising. You haven’t been to the gym in months because the wear and tear of your job and your family life is causing your mental exhaustion. Brother, you’re not alone. I was there, mentally and physically exhausted after work with absolutely no energy to think about dating, exercise, plan vacations, spend time with family. I was beat. I started questioning my career, whether or not it was time for a change to get my energy back, to get my life back. Then I was introduced to yoga.
Yoga has been a life-saver and I will never stop going consistently. I know, I know, yoga, yes, yoga, that girly-thing all those chicks do in those tight pants we like to see them wearing. My brethren, yoga is so much more than a form of exercise. It is meditation, it is healing, it is rewarding, but most importantly it is energizing! As an exercise itself, yoga is amazing for building those tiny muscles that you don’t work out when you go to the gym. The deep stretches and long holding of poses will not only help you build a solid core strength but it will also help you work out all those tight areas that have been bothering you for months.
The main reason for this article is what yoga has done for me mentally. It comes down to yoga as a form of meditation and how it will transform your life. Yoga focuses on realigning oneself with the body, mind, and spirit. Something that gets trampled on daily with our jobs. It realigns oneself by having us focus on our breathing while holding different positions. Inhale, exhale, deep breathing, the form of life itself. Something we take for granted on a daily basis. After the first couple of classes as I started to settle in and become more comfortable with being vulnerable, I began to leave yoga feeling energized and mentally relaxed. I started dating more, I began to work on side projects after work. I had more confidence in myself. It is the perfect way to reclaim control of your life after a stressful day at work.
Yoga also heals because you will stretch out very tight areas of your muscles which tend to hold onto stress. Releasing the tension in those areas of your body is detoxifying. But most importantly, yoga is rewarding. Once you start going consistently, you will feel proud of your improvement in the movements and postures. You will notice, a difference in your mind. You feel clear, no more fogginess or over-exhaustion. You are confident because you’re noticing the strength of your core muscles getting stronger, you have more energy. It’s amazing!
Once you start practicing yoga regularly, you will realize the positive impact it makes on your daily life. All of a sudden, you begin to have more patience, more understanding and are capable of handling stressful situations in a much more calming manner. But most importantly, it will help you to gather the energy required to live an abundant life outside of work. Plus, most of the girls are attractive and wear those tight pants we like to see them in. Good luck men!
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Photo courtesy iStock.