Yoga is touted as being able to help with everything from back pain to gout to stress to infertility. But what about the way you think about your body? Can yoga improve body image? I am a firm believe that YES it can, as it helped me more than anything else I have ever experienced.
Do you ever look in the mirror and don’t totally love the reflection staring back at you?
Do you focus on the features that you don’t like rather than the ones you appreciate?
Do you ever feel like if you could just improve this one little detail you would be so much happier?
I am completely guilty of this.
My negative body images began during my senior year in high school. I was always staying active and playing sports, and I prided myself on my huge appetite. I’d come home from cross-country practice after a grueling workout, help myself to thirds of whatever my mom made for dinner, and then happily go about my evening of homework and chatting with friends on AIM (yes, AIM!!). Sports and physical activity were always for fun and competition, never to “stay in shape.”
Then that fall, I got a stress fracture in my tibia.
There went my exercise, out the window. I couldn’t run anymore, and my activity level plummeted. I continued, however, to eat for someone who was running six miles a day. Obviously, I gained weight quickly and for the first time in my life, I did not like what I saw when I looked in the mirror.
Honestly, typing that out makes me feel so sad, especially now that I have a daughter. I would never, ever want her to think negatively about her self-image. What a waste of energy to get so bent out of shape with a 15 pound weight gain.
Anyway, the next four years through college, I constantly battled my inner voice who told me I was too fat and too out of shape for … what? I don’t even know. I had friends and I was happy, but I definitely worried too much about my body looking a certain way.
Then, in December of 2006, I stepped into my first Bikram Yoga class.
My roommate who brought me warned, “you really should just wear a sports bra and shorts. It’s so hot and you want to able to see as much of your body as you can.”
Uhhhh … what? See my body? As in, stare at myself for 90 minutes as I attempt something I’ve never done?
Yes, that’s exactly what she meant.
So I did. I dug out some old Nike running shorts and a sports bra from my bottom drawer as my very first yoga outfit.
Now, in Bikram Yoga, you really do stare at yourself for 90 minutes. There’s a huge mirror at the front of the room as well as lots of cues from the teacher to, “look in the mirror.” If there was ever a place to be self-conscience, Bikram Yoga was it … or so I thought.
The crazy thing about that first class was I was too challenged by the postures and the heat to give my body (in terms of its weight) a second thought. Sure, I was thinking about my spine and my knees and my arms and my neck, but all in relation to how to do the poses.
Honestly, it was just so hot that I didn’t have the energy nor the bandwidth to think about what I looked like.
Although I couldn’t put that feeling into words then, I know that freeing my mind for those 90 minutes was a relief. Yeah, the class was wicked challenging, but I ended up appreciating my body for what it could do. I remember thinking, heck, I made it through a Bikram Yoga class and not only that, but I want to go back!
So what is it about yoga that actually helps improve body image?
It forces us to confront ourselves.
If you don’t like what you see when you look in the mirror at home, that feeling can linger all day. All the while that you’re running errands, working, and picking up your kids you think about how you’d like to lose ten pounds or tighten up your abdomen or clear up your skin, but you never really get a chance to do anything about it.
So it continues to bum you out.
When you look in the mirror at yoga, you really have to sit with that discomfort for the duration of the class. Everything about you becomes intensely visible and presents an opportunity for either change or self-acceptance.
I remember the first time I didn’t fall out of Standing Bow Pulling Pose. Coming out of that posture, I had so much appreciation for what my body could do, regardless of its weight.
That moment was one of the first times I remember accepting who I was – physically and mentally – in that moment without trying to “fix” anything.
All of a sudden my thinking shifted from how I wanted my body to look to what I wanted my body to be able to do.
Avoidance rarely accomplish what we want.
Acceptance, compassion, and action on the other hand, are far more effective.
When you look at yourself in the mirror and experience the the way each pose affects your body, you’re tuning in with yourself. You’re not running away. This honest confrontation leads to understanding and self-acceptance, especially when it comes to your own body image.
Changing the body becomes about quality not vanity.
We focus a lot in yoga on “changing the body.” However, we’re changing not to look certain way on the outside, but rather to operate more efficiently on the inside. Sometimes an external change (think: weight loss, more muscle, better posture) is a nice side effect, but we aim to change the body so that it helps us live our most productive, comfortable life.
Let’s say, for example, you come to yoga because you want to lose weight. After a month of practicing you notice that your digestive system is functioning better than it ever has. You no longer have stomach aches, you can eat whatever you want without feeling bloated, and you really feel awesome. Yay!
But you haven’t lost any weight (yet…).
Then another month goes by and all of a sudden you notice that your jeans don’t fit. They’re too loose! You need a belt to hold them up. So you step on the scale only to find that the number has not budged. What gives?!
The yoga postures that you’ve been so faithfully doing have transformed excess fat into – you guessed it – muscle. And I know you know the deal with muscle … it weighs more than fat!
By this point you’re thinking ok, my digestive system rocks, my clothes are loose, I feel freakin’ amazing. And that feeling from yoga translates into your appearance.
My appearance didn’t change until I had been practicing Bikram Yoga for nearly three years. THREE WHOLE. YEARS. On the inside, however, I had no pain, a healthy digestive system, and I slept great. I happily accepted that feeling comfortable in my mind and my body – which I have Bikram Yoga to thank for – far surpassed a quick loss of weight.
Genuine self-acceptance improves body image dramatically.
Your body becomes a teacher, rather than something that receives judgement
Anything that you may dislike has a purpose in yoga. Those qualities you once judged actually teach you about what you want to improve. You can view those physical qualities (arms, legs, stomach, back, etc.) not as something positive or negative, but just as information.
Your body becomes less about image and more about a vehicle for quality living.
Let’s say you once hated your arms (I know, so shallow). But in yoga, you start to learn that there’s nothing to hate – your arms are what they are, and they’re a part of you. You realize though, that they get fatigued easily in class. That feeling is your arms teaching you they need to get stronger.
Your body becomes less about what it looks like and all about how it’s able to take care of you.
Then you can use the yoga postures to help your arms get stronger.
Because your body will be feeling better, the whole way you view your body will improve. I know it sounds out there at the beginning, but it’s so so true.
Tuning out all the messages from the media and society that scream we should look a certain way takes discipline and self-control. But when you block all of those unproductive messages out, you end up being able to focus on how your body feels and what your body needs, rather than on judging it compared to a celebrity or cover model.
And what better place to tune all of those message out than in yoga while sweating?!
I’m so grateful for yoga for helping me get over judging my body because seriously, what a waste of energy.
The fact that yoga truly can improve your body image is such a gift!
I hope you feel it too 🙂
P.S. I never ever thought I would be ok with stretch marks, but I totally am!
