When you’re away on vacation, it’s easy to get caught up in everything you left behind: job, social obligations, bills, and other responsibilities. On vacation, you’re supposed to relax and concentrate on things about the vacation. You shouldn’t be checking work email, answering phone calls, and “just doing a couple of things.” Your employer will want to wring anything possible out of you. Don’t let it. Instead, focus on relaxing and enjoying yourself. Yoga is a great way to achieve inner harmony and boost your ability to relax.
1. Better Sleep
People generally stay up far too late and sleep far too little. The inexorable drive toward production forces people into unhealthy sleeping habits. The myth is that you’re not a “contributing member of society unless you’re producing.” People also keep those habits when they go on vacation, “dancing the night away” or “partying till they drop.” Such behavior is just plain unhealthy. You can strengthen your core while regulating your internal clock by getting up early, perhaps even with the dawn, and doing yoga. Humans are inherently diurnal, and yoga can be a big part of your overall health. In addition to getting up early, you can also go to bed early. That doesn’t necessarily mean 7 p.m. Hitting the sack at roughly 10 p.m. and rising at 6 a.m. is a great way to end one day and begin the next. Doing yoga before bed, even just a few poses, will relax your mind to prepare for sleep.
2. Stress Relief
There’s that “inner peace” thing again. You can cleanse your mind of intrusive stressful thoughts by doing yoga poses at the beginning and end of each day, not to mention a couple during the day itself. Imagine vacationing in Hawaii and visiting the rainforest to see the incredible flora and fauna. Do you want to be thinking about that meeting you need to attend when you get back? Or, would you rather marvel at the colors and shapes of the plants and animals? By doing yoga, you can leach the stress from your body and focus your mind. In this case, that focus would be on the wildlife and plants of the Hawaiian rainforest.
3. Regulating Cortisol
Have you ever noticed that you get sick when you’re mentally stressed? You have a hormone in your body called cortisol. Your endocrine system needs to function normally. However, when it’s too low or too high, then it poses a problem. Stress, whether acute, chronic, or traumatic, can cause cortisol levels to rise precipitously. Too much cortisol for a long time can weaken your immune system, resulting in you getting sick. Yoga is a great way to reduce stress through exercise. When you reduce stress, your body will control your cortisol levels naturally. And, no one wants to get sick on vacation!
Before a vacation, you’ll be busy booking travel insurance and printing out your itinerary, but it’s also important to make sure you pack what you need to do daily yoga while on your trip.