From the moment I first stepped onto my yoga mat 4 years ago, I fell in love with it. Initially, I only wanted to get physical benefits as I had been feeling a severe pain in my back and my shoulders at the time. Yoga was an excellent way to gain flexibility and strength which then boosted my productivity and helped me keep the balance between my personal and business life. But, as the time went by, I felt that my coordination, focus and memory capacity significantly improved. I got less distracted by my own thoughts and more focused on the things I was working on. It gave me an inner strength and a peace of mind. The experience was illuminating.

 The technological advancement has had an incredible impact on the way we live. On the one hand, it has helped us become more efficient and more productive in our everyday life thus leading to better results. On the other hand, it has caused us more stress and a lack of time. We easily get overwhelmed by the pressure we have to face on a daily basis. To make matters worse, stress can take its toll physically, emotionally and mentally and can affect everything from sleep to our relationships with people that surround us.

Here in Vega IT, we believe that in order to maintain productivity and reach our full potential we need to learn how to bring peace to our mind and live a healthy lifestyle. Besides attending crossfit trainings, consuming fresh fruit on a daily basis and going to the gym as often as possible one way we do that is through practicing yoga.

To us, yoga is much more than exercise - it’s an ancient technology towards well-being and ultimate liberation. It opens up the memory structure of the physical body and reconstructs the life towards the ultimate possibility.</span

Besides attending crossfit trainings, consuming fresh fruit on a daily basis and going to the gym as often as possible one way we do that is through practicing yoga.

Here are a few ways yoga can help you reduce stress:

• It relaxes the body - yoga is a powerful tool for reducing tension and relaxing the physical body. Postures like bends and inversions can have a deeply soothing effect on the whole body system.
• It helps you breathe more effectively - when we are under a lot of stress we tend to breathe more heavily which often leads to even more anxiety, panic and sometimes even burnout. Yoga allows you to use a diaphragm and the whole lung capacity to breathe more effectively and thus calm yourself down in stressful situations. It interrupts worry cycles.
• It releases emotional energy - sometimes when we are overwhelmed with daily tasks, it seems that maintaining focus is the most difficult thing in the world. We easily fall into a vicious circle of worrying too much and this can be really exhausting. By stepping on to the mat we have the opportunity to step out of our thinking mode, let go of our worries and reconnect with our body and mind.
• It relaxes the mind - meditation is a powerful way to relax and slow down the mind as any kind of breath awareness. When in seated meditation pose, you take awareness to your breathing and suddenly everything becomes more relaxed and your mind more peaceful.
• It helps us understand how our mind works - one of the most valuable benefits of yoga is undoubtedly its ability to make us become aware of our mind patterns. By finding out about different ways we can respond to stress, we learn how to be less affected by it. We choose a more acceptable response - I am calm, all is well.

To us, yoga is much more than exercise - it’s an ancient technology towards well-being and ultimate liberation.

 So, if you are looking for the way how to release stress and find your inner peace, here are the three things you can do every day:

 1. Breathe properly - it will affect your emotional state, decrease your stress level and improve your concentration.

 2. Maintain proper body posture - it will prevent a chronic pain in your back and make you feel more confident, lighter and stronger.

 3. Be aware of the present moment - all joy, happiness, and freedom we are searching for out there in the future are actually right here and now. So, relax your mind and embrace the power of now as it really is.

 Happy International Day of Yoga!

 What do you do to release stress and find your peace of mind?