Erika Pranzo, LPC

How to Use Yoga for Holiday Stress Relief During This Season

Yoga For Holiday Stress Relief

Yoga is a powerful tool for stress relief of any kind. As the holiday season rapidly approaches, stress often follows. Yoga is one of my favorite tools for holiday stress relief.

If your stomach is already in knots thinking of facing family members at Thanksgiving, or if your heart is racing imagining all the Christmas gifts you “have” to buy, take a pause.

Ongoing research continues to study the links between physical and mental health, as we know they are deeply interconnected. For example, chronic stress and anxiety can lead to disruptive physical symptoms such as insomnia, fatigue, IBS and body pains.

However, we also know that interventions used with the body, such as breath work, mindfulness, and yoga can lessen physical and mental issues!

What is Yoga Beyond A Physical Practice?

While most people may envision the physical practice when they think of yoga, yoga is actually a physical, mental, and spiritual practice. It takes place both on the mat and throughout daily life.

Yoga has been used in healing for hundreds of years, originating in ancient India. Neuroscientists have more recently been studying the connection between yoga and meditation with health benefits. They have consistently found significant results.

Practicing yoga for just 30-90 minutes per week can increase body flexibility. Practicing daily for about a month can begin to decrease feelings of anxiety and depression. A regular yoga practice has also been shown to increase the diversity of microbiome in the gut to improve gut health.

Even more astounding, regularly practicing meditation can literally restructure your brain to build resiliency and make you feel calmer and happier!

With all that said, yoga is a beneficial tool for creating a sense of grounding within yourself. The best part is, you don’t need anything except yourself (and sometimes a mat) to practice.

Erika specializes in anxiety and depression, eating disorders, ADHD, and grief & loss. To learn more about Erika, read her bio here.

How to Cope with Poor Body Image This Summer

Let’s talk about summer body image. Finally, it’s over 70 degrees in Philly. It’s time to open the windows, feel the sun on your skin, wear sundresses, and hate every picture you take. Stop right there- not this year!!

Our mental health often improves as the temperature gets warmer and the days get longer. However, stress surrounding summer body image can also surface. We naturally wear less clothing in the summer to keep up with higher temperatures. But less clothing means exposing more skin and fewer opportunities to “hide” everything we’ve deemed hateable. At the same time, many of us also attend more social events because people finally want to get out and enjoy the weather!

With less clothing, more social events, and countless social media platforms to document it all, how can we cope with body image this summer?

Here is my list of tips for you to practice:

Normalize the stress surrounding body image.

Step one is normalizing your stress. You are not alone- unfortunately, many people, especially women, dread shorts season because they struggle with body image. It is essential to acknowledge the stress and send compassion to it. Dr. Kristen Neff has spent her life researching self-compassion, and her research has shown time and time again that when we realize we are not alone in our struggles, we feel better. She recommends reminding yourself, “Most people would feel stressed in this situation, and that’s OK.”

Buy clothes that fit and feel good.

How many times have you said, “Oh, but I’ll lose weight and be able to wear this again.” Body sizes fluctuate, so if something does sometimes fit, OK. But otherwise, I recommend just getting rid of it! It is more likely to make you feel bad about body image and lower your motivation. Go shopping (physically go to the store to try things on)! Find something that fits YOUR body and makes you feel good. You are more likely to be happier, more motivated, and more confident wearing things that fit your body well and comfortably.

Take photos of things and places, not your body.

Of course, we all want photos of ourselves to reflect on, but how many do we need? Try to shift your focus toward taking pictures of the cool places you go, that gorgeous $7 latte, and other things that make you happy this summer. These moments are important. When you do take photos of yourself, practice self-compassion and remind yourself that it is just a photo.

Practice body gratitude.

Acknowledge everything your body does for you! How many steps do your legs allow you to take a day? What words will your mouth and throat enable you to say? Those “not perfect” abs allow you to hold your body up throughout the day. When we take a step back and realize that our bodies are the vehicles that we have and use to engage with the world, sometimes we are able to give them more credit than usual.

Practice acceptance and body neutrality.

You are so much more than your body. Your body is the physical form of everything within you. You have thoughts, feelings, intelligence & creativity, and a million more exciting traits than your waist size!

Most of us know and understand all of this, but it can be hard to make peace with. Why? Because hating ourselves is profitable…but that’s a topic for another blog post! At the end of the day, your body is a body. You don’t have to love it, and you definitely do not have to hate it. Although everyone’s body image journey and needs are unique, these tips can help pretty much anyone, and I hope they help you!

Erika Pranzo, LPC is a virtual therapist at Therapy for Women . To learn more about Erika or book an appointment, click here!

Nurturing Mental Health with Yoga

“Fake it til you make it,” “sleep when you’re dead,” “power through it.”

Growing up in the competitive dance world, phrases like these were the only ones I knew. That’s why, when I first stepped onto a yoga mat in early adulthood, the instructor’s words struck me. “just being here is enough.”

Society often normalizes or even praises competitive attitudes. But criticism, comparison, and negative inner dialogue are some of the most common issues that accompany the two most common mental health disorders: anxiety and depression.

Yoga has a different perspective to offer – what yoga for mental health can do

The physical benefits of yoga, such as releasing mood-boosting hormones like serotonin and dopamine, are relatively well-known. But yoga has also been scientifically proven to nurture symptoms of depression, anxiety, and insomnia. And here’s how…

Establishing a regular yoga practice can teach you to be an observer. This is because it helps you learn to notice physical sensations and thoughts that come up without judging yourself. As a result, yoga helps build the self-awareness needed to notice when your body feels different, which can uncover early signs of anxiety, depression, or insomnia.

Enhancing your mind-body connection increases your ability to self-regulate.

By engaging your mind AND your body, and enhancing your mind-body connection, yoga increases your ability to self-regulate. This ultimately allows you to create a safe space for processing and healing, which is where the cognitive processing piece comes in!

Without the proper tools to help process stress, you may struggle with emotions or behaviors as a result, such as oversleeping, increased conflict with others, and social withdrawal, etc., which can impact your mental health. Yoga theory has allowed me to challenge my own limiting thoughts and beliefs, many of which I had held onto for over two decades.

I encourage others to learn healthy cognitive processing methods rooted in self-regulation, which can lead to better outcomes, such as learning to soothe your nervous system or practicing boundaries.

Erika is a virtual therapist at Therapy for Women. To learn more about Erika, or read her bio here.

How to Survive Hot Girl Summer If You Struggle with Body Image

Summer is often a major source of anxiety for many women. Research by Kite (2019) found that many women completely avoid social activities because of anxiety regarding how their bodies look in vulnerable clothing.

Over the centuries, women have received pressure to maintain a certain beauty/ body standard through nearly every avenue of media. However, these standards change almost every decade. From pencil eyebrows, flat bums, and large chests in the 90’s to basically the exact opposite in the 2000’s, how can we really say what beauty is and isn’t?

Recent years have taken strides in the direction of inclusivity of body diversity. Many companies, worldwide, are including women of different sizes and races. Still, many times these women in larger bodies shown in media have a certain shape to their body, implying that we still have a way to go.

Many of us know that things like Airbrush and cosmetic surgeries exist. But, we still get caught in the cycle of comparing and self-criticism. This may be because objectification is still so deeply entangled in society’s norms.

Now flash forward to 2021, where the hashtag #HotGirlSummer fills social media.

In 2019, this term Hot Girl Summer was born and it became a movement that has empowered many women. The phrase often preaches to enjoy time with yourself and your friends, doing what you want without judgement.

However, I have noticed that issues like self-criticism, competition, and self-destructive behaviors still seem prevalent among many friends and clients. So, I created an Instagram poll to see how people are feeling about body image anxiety this summer. This poll detected 79% of participants, those of which did not exclude any gender identities, answered that Hot Girl Summer provokes body image anxiety for them. If Hot Girl Summer is supposed to be an empowering term, why is it still causing so much anxiety? Likely because the first word in the phrase is Hot.

This leads me to wonder: what are we defining as hot, and why?

While society’s body standards have changed throughout centuries, people’s main goals beyond the external world have remained fairly constant. People want to be happy and content and to feel empowered. Maybe hot girl summer is not about how your body looks, but it is how you feel, what you do and the overall energy you cultivate.

Erika specializes in anxiety, depression, eating disorders, and grief. To learn more about Erika, read her bio here.

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