Inner Engineering Improves Anxiety

What is anxiety? Many of us get nervous from time to time.   When this feeling escalates, we say that we’re getting anxious. When this feeling persists, then it becomes anxiety. So what happens when you’re anxious and how can we reduce this?

When you’re feeling nervous or anxious, your body reacts as if your survival is at stake. When it comes to your body’s chemical reactions, it’s the same whether you’re really stressed at work or if someone physically threatened your life. Now, imagine how you would feel if someone was threatening your life every day. This is what it feels like for those going through severe anxiety.

When your body is in constant survival mode, it takes a severe toll on your body. The technologies offered through Inner Engineering give a method of re-establishing your system the way you want it. No matter what the external situation, your body and mind feel less threatened – thus you receive less of a toll on your body. So what happens when you feel tense? Your heart pumps harder, your muscles contract, and you are ready for action. This is how you feel when you feel anxious and it doesn’t always seem like it’s under your control.

Inner Engineering and subsequent kriya practices (meditation practices based on breath) have shown tremendous benefits to long-term practitioners. Here are some survey results for those suffering from anxiety.

From our survey of 102 respondents, 90% reported improvement in terms of their anxiety. How significant was this improvement?

Figure 2: Percentage of those reducing medication of those reporting improvement for anxiety

Of those reporting improvement, 50% were able to stop taking their medications and another 28% reduced their medication. This data shows that Inner Engineering and subsequent kriya practices can have a strong impact on alleviating anxiety to the extent of it not having a pathological impact on your life. As the data suggests, for many people, it became a cure for this common ailment.

So, how can one simple program significantly reduce anxiety for this many people? Meditation and breathing exercises help you focus on the present moment. Inner Engineering is a science designed and taught by Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev, a yogi who has a strong understanding of the intricacies of the human physiological process. The whole system of yoga is based on the spine. And many of our vital functions, as those in our organ systems, are regulated by the spine. The functions in our body which happen automatically are governed by the autonomic nervous system. There are two components of this system: the sympathetic nervous system (fight-or-flight response) and the parasympathetic nervous system (rest and digest response). These systems function in a complimentary manner – when one is on, the other is off. When people are suffering from anxiety, the sympathetic nervous system is overexpressed which causes the symptoms such as increased heart rate, your increased muscle contraction, and the breath becomes shorter and heavier. By taking Inner Engineering and practicing the subsequent kriyas, the physiology naturally aligns itself towards the parasympathetic system, so you feel less threatened and anxious.