Heal your life force, find peace of mind, and relieve your depressive or bipolar symptoms.

By Liz Owen

If you have ever been in a situation where you feel tense, stressed, or unable to calm down, you have probably experienced the value of taking a few big, deep breaths. This is an everyday example of how yoga can dramatically shift our unhealthy, unsupportive emotions into constructive and helpful ones, and how it can help us have happy, content lives.

Yoga can help many symptoms of depression and bipolar disorder, including mood swings, fear, anxiety, tension, and lethargy. One way yoga helps is to release energetic blockages that are called granthis in Sanskrit. These are "knots" that form at the navel region, the seat of personal power; the heart center, the seat of the emotional body, and the throat, the seat of self-expression.

When we release these blockages, our physical and emotional layers open and energy flows freely. This energy, called prana, is the essential life-force of all beings. When prana flows freely through the body, we feel vital and healthy; we reconnect with others and become a part of the world.

This sequence of yoga poses and breathwork is designed to help you release your blockages, to untie your knots. Doing this sequence regularly can bring into your life a glimpse into our connection with universal energy and its abiding, supporting role in our well-being. By opening your body and centering your mind, you can balance the ups and downs of bipolar mood swings and change anxiety to calmness, sadness to happiness, and lethargy to vitality. You can glimpse your connection with universal energy and find its abiding, supporting role in your well-being.

Liz Owen is a certified Iyengar yoga instructor and has taught yoga for over 17 years. Liz teaches in the Boston area and throughout New England. LizOwenYoga.com.