How Yoga Can Improve Your Body Image

a group of people doing yoga on mats.

Struggles with body image and disordered eating are, unfortunately, a common experience for many people. And part of what comes with this struggle is a disconnection from your own body. When you don’t accept your body as it is, you tend to stop listening to it. You lose touch with the experience of being in your body, which ultimately disconnects you from yourself. But there are ways to restore and repair that connection. Yoga is one powerful way to develop a mind-body connection and start forming a healthy relationship with your body. Yoga has been found to improve body image, self-compassion, mindfulness, and emotion regulation. It has also been shown to decrease the desire for thinness. The physical practice of yoga can help you focus on how your body feels, rather than how it looks. This helps you connect with physical sensations and emotions in the present moment, tune into your hunger signals, and know when it’s time to rest.

The philosophy of yoga includes the yamas,* which can act as a guideline for how to treat your body with love and respect. The yamas reflect values that can give you a sense of integrity about how you live and how you care for yourself, which is essential for recovery:

  • Ahimsa means non-violence and is about honoring your body’s needs (e.g., adequate nutrition, balanced exercise, etc.) and having compassion for yourself. 
  • Satya means truthfulness. It involves learning to use your voice and accepting help.
  • Brachacharya means non-excess. It is a reminder to live your life with balance, as this is the key to recovery.
  • Aparigraha means non-attachment, which involves letting go of being perfect and realizing that you are not defined by the shape of your body. Aparigraha invites you to accept your body for its unique beauty. 

  Being able to listen to your body and provide it with nourishment is an essential lesson from the yoga yamas and a foundational aspect of recovery from negative body image and eating disorders. Yoga provides a way to start connecting with your body, learning to listen to it, and treating it with love and respect. At Evergreen Therapy, we emphasize these values in our work—especially when it comes to body image issues and eating disorders—and we encourage our clients to explore yoga as a possible complement to talk therapy. 

Exploring the Connection Between Body Image and Self-Compassion

a woman sitting in the grass holding a circular mirror.

If you’re unhappy with your body and the reflection you see in the mirror, you may be interested to learn that self-compassion is linked with a more positive body image and sense of self-acceptance. It can lead you to appreciate your body for all that it can do, rather than hating it and feeling shameful about the parts of it you judge and criticize. Having compassion for yourself means treating your body with love and respect.

 

Compassion-Focused Therapy is one of the approaches we use at Evergreen Therapy to treat body image issues and eating disorders. This therapeutic approach is designed to enhance your level of self-kindness, your connection with others, and your use of mindfulness in everyday life. Through this form of therapy, you can learn how to treat your body with care and how to silence that inner critic that makes you feel shameful towards yourself. If you’ve been struggling with body image issues or disordered eating, you might consider working with a compassion-focused therapist to start developing more acceptance toward yourself. In the meantime, here are a few ways you can begin cultivating self-compassion on your own:

 

  1. Treat your body the way you’d treat a friend, or the way you wish your friend would treat their own body. 

This practice really puts things into perspective. Think of someone you love. Would you want them to be as hard on themselves as you are on yourself? Imagine if you heard them being self-critical about their appearance. What would you say to them? Turn these words into self-kindness as you look at your reflection and say them to yourself. As you direct these words inward, remember that your body allows you to be in this world and experience life. Treat it with gratitude for all it can do, and see it as your ally—a friend who supports you every day.

 

  1. Give yourself supportive touch.

Physical touch can help you calm down when you are upset. One way to do this is by placing your hand on your heart. Tune into this sensation. Gently breathe in and out, making your exhalations longer than your inhalations. You can repeat a mantra to yourself when doing this, to quiet your inner critic, such as: I am safe, I am beautiful, I am worthy of love.

 

  1. Express your emotions through journaling.

Journaling is a great way to release the pain you might be feeling inside. Writing gives you a space to express yourself and let go of the shame you feel about your body. Begin by thinking about a moment when you felt unhappy about your body. Tune into the emotions associated with that moment, and write about that experience without judging yourself for how you felt in the moment. No one is perfect, including you. Reflect on this through your journaling, as imperfection is a part of the human experience. Finally, write something kind towards yourself. Compassionate self-talk makes it easier for you to love and accept your body as it is.

 

Meditation and Mental Health—Part 4

It’s time for part four of the five-part series I’ve been exploring on meditation and mental health. So far, I’ve made the case for how meditation can support us by influencing how we relate to our thoughts, our emotions, and the people in our lives. This time, I want to examine the role that meditation plays in supporting our physical health. You see, a healthy body is associated with a healthy mind. That’s because our minds and our bodies are connected; the health of one influences and is influenced by the health of the other. Through our meditation practice, we come to understand and access the mind-body connection in ways that foster and expand our mental health.

One way to define meditation is as a committed practice of transforming the mind and connecting with the body. Through the practice, we learn to consciously follow the bridge of our breath, guiding our attention into the body and connecting with ourselves. Every time we find ourselves getting distracted or lost in our thoughts, we come back into our bodies and anchor our attention in the present moment. This not only serves us during our formal practice, it also aids us in every other area of our lives. Because the more practiced we are at bridging the connection between mind and body, the more aware of our physical selves we become.

With the awareness of meditation practice comes the capacity to mindfully choose how we treat our physical bodies. We start to think more carefully and be more intentional about the foods we eat, the beverages we drink, and the products we put into or onto our bodies. When our bodies are fueled and fortified in ways that support our physical health, we think more clearly, engage in higher levels of productivity, attend to our needs more efficiently, sustain higher levels of energy, and feel more alive. Improved mental health, in this way, becomes a natural byproduct of physical health—and meditation is one way to get us there.

The mindfulness we cultivate through a regular meditation practice gives us the ability to keep an ongoing awareness of our physical bodies. It enables us to be in contact with our hunger cues, so we know when it’s time to eat. It encourages us to eat and drink slowly, so we enjoy the process and realize when we’ve had enough. It let us tune into our intrinsic wisdom, choosing to eat what our bodies need instead of what our minds crave. All of this serves to reinforce the mind-body connection, thereby increasing our self-awareness, self-care, physical wellness, and mental health.

When we learn to connect with the breath and the body, we start to expand what’s physically possible for us. This is something yogis have known for centuries, which is no surprise, considering yoga is ultimately a moving form of meditation. Not only can we reach new levels of physical fitness through the foundations of meditation, we can also become highly intuitive about how we move our bodies. We can listen to the messages our bodies are sending, so we know when it’s time to be active and when it’s time to rest. We know when it’s a good idea to roll on some lavender oil and take an Epsom salt bath, or when a good old doctor’s visit is in order. To be this aware, this connected, requires ongoing attention. It’s a skill that we develop through practice, over time.

One of the coolest things about meditation is that there are endless ways we can use it to support our bodies and sharpen our minds. For example, many swimmers, basketball players, gymnasts, and runners regularly engage in visualization meditation to improve their performance. That’s because studies have shown that athletes who use visualization meditation to imagine themselves performing a certain physical activity improve as much as—or, in some cases, more than—athletes who practice actually performing the activity. How’s that for a testament to the mind-body connection?

Whether your physical health goals include losing weight, overcoming panic attacks, expanding your yoga practice, changing your physique, adopting a cleaner diet, cutting back your alcohol consumption, improving your athletic performance, reducing the intensity of chronic aches and pains, or just generally feeling more connected to your body, meditation practice can support you—and you get to enjoy the fun bonus prize of enhanced mental health!

As long as we’re enjoying this human experience, we’ll do so within the vessels of our beautiful, remarkable, wise, and resilient bodies. It’s a worthy activity, then, to connect with those bodies and treat them with love and respect. Meditation, which gives us entry to the present moment and guides our awareness within, is a gift we give ourselves in the service of our health. I invite you to begin exploring your mind-body connection through meditation, yoga, and any other practices that call to you. And I look forward to coming back to you soon with the final installment of this series!