I was on Skype with my mom the other day trying to come up with a yoga practice to help her manage her anxiety attacks. I almost wanted to tell her: “You’ve never been an anxious person. Chill out. It will pass…” But I took it to heart when she tried to describe her frequent rumination: “It’s like a swarm of bees buzzing and buzzing and the more you try to slow the louder they get…it’s impossible to even breathe.”

Anxiety is a neurological disorder, and whether it is cyclical or comes unexpectedly it’s hard to control on the spot. So before we even got to the mat with mom we did some journaling. I asked her to analyze her mental patterns of rumination and find out what caused them. She made a fearless moral inventory of herself. The examination helped us pinpoint her strengths and limitations so we could pick on the traits that were conductive to or impeding her growth.

She identified an inability to claim responsibility. She felt more comfortable delegating tasks to subordinates, students and family, but failing to complete them herself. She also examined her intolerance to loud people and her impatience when others were not stepping up to their game. But in a way, most of the traits she criticized in others, we the same knots that tangled her mind and hijacked her productivity. After a heartfelt conversation we both concluded that she was never open minded about the uncertain future or unexpected outcome. There was a lot of fear trapped in her solar plexus that pushed her to procrastinate decisions, and drag simple daily activities for hours.

We detected a dis-connect between the mind and the heart. Even worse – the heart had shut down because the mind was always jittery and preoccupied with things that hadn’t even taken place. Her diagnosis was crystal clear: existential angst and cyclical phobia of not having lived up to the task.

To mitigate that I gave her mindfulness exercises. She had to sit in and observe how she performed simple daily actions. She started to detect nuances in her movements and body language where she would always perform and action and then cross her arms in front of her chest as is she were wearing a safety jacket. She actually did not feel safe in her own skin.

So after the mindfulness practice, I showed her some breathing moves to open up the heart and calm the mind. And then when he breathing pattern was no longer shallow she did this anti-anxiety routine. She’s been doing it for three weeks now says with a smile: “It’s helped me open up to possibility and make friends with my mind.”

I bet, tt will help you, too…

Anti-anxiety Yoga Routine: Befriend Your Mind (open level)

This yoga routine offers a healthy blend of invigorating heart-openers, calming forward bends, purging twists and rejuvenating inversions to keep you open to opportunities to enrich your life.