So, I know a lot of you won’t believe me, but yes – even yoga teachers get overwhelmed!

We face all the same challenges as everyone else – paying the bills, navigating the traffic, managing the family calendar, dealing with difficult people, bringing up kids, cleaning the house, the list goes on…

Alas, we don’t have a magic wand to wave all those stresses away. But, as yoga teachers, we do have some pretty awesome tools at our disposal, that help us cope with those stresses.

I have three go-to tools that I use, whenever I feel the pressure building.

1. Exhale

This is the simplest one. Taking a deep, gentle sigh goes a long way to interrupting the fight-or-flight mode that we can often get stuck in.

It’s free, it’s easy, you can do it anytime, anywhere. Even one deep exhale can make a difference; three or more is like pressing the pause button; a full minute of conscious, kind exhales is like rebooting your entire system.

2. Time-Out

You might not think of Time-Out as being a yogic activity (many people still think of yoga as purely exercise, as something to ‘do’). But one of my favourite yogi sayings is “The pause is as important as the pose”. As soon as I start to feel like there are too many tabs open in my brain, I will pause to take some time out. That might look like going for a walk, or popping to my studio to do 20 minutes of yin yoga, or even giving myself the afternoon away from my laptop.

3. Early to bed

This one is my all-time fave! Anyone who knows me well knows that I love love love my early nights. There is no such thing as ‘too early’ for me. Anything after 9pm, I consider to be a late night. As one of my favourite teachers said recently “Nine hours plus a night is ideal for me”. Ha, wise words, Meghan. 🙂

So next time you’re feeling like it’s all getting too much, give yourself permission to sigh out and time-out, and then treat yourself to an early night.