The science of happiness is actually a thing also called positive psychology. It focuses on the things that make us flourish rather than taking away the problem as often seen in traditional psychology. Positive psychology is something we go into depth in with our Yoga Teacher Training, but here's a little taster to help you feel good! 

How does yoga come into it? Yoga is a system of techniques and guidance for enriched living. Believe it or not but yoga actually makes us feel good from the outside in.

- Certain poses can bring more blood into the brain & release physical stress in the body

- By simply bringing awareness to your breath and noticing your body you will honour it's needs and instantly feel better.

- Deep breathing reduces stress and anxiety

- By practicing yoga you release sertatonin, oxycotin and GABA levels - ultimately feeling happy is about chemical relations and hormones in your body. Yoga can help level those out and in effect make you feel great!  

Its absolutely not about being positive all the time! Positive psychology is actually the study of science of the things that help uplift people to feel good. 

" Imagine your mind as a garden - removing the weeds doesn't mean your garden will grow"

Academic Martin Seligman created a useful metaphor to help explain. 

Imagine your mind as a garden with negative thoughts as weeds and positive throughts as flowers. By simply removing the weeds that doesn't mean your garden will grow. We need to nurture, cultivate and provide for the garden in order for it to thrive. 

How to cultivate positive emotions? We can use techniques such as mindfulness and memory to feel happy.  Some examples are:

- Remembering a time when you were really happy and embracing that emotion. 

- Another good thing to do is mindfully become aware of how you are feeling right now and find the source of that emotion and choose a positive reaction rather than negative.  We have a negative bias so we tend to remember 1 negative event over 3 positive ones, so try to bring more awareness to the positive things in your life no matter how small. 

-Meditation is about cultivation a certain way of being and can help control your reactions to things and the way you see things. 

- Mindfulness is a concentrated awareness to what is going on around you without judgment.

All backbends are energising and they open your heart and chest relieving tension, sending blood to your brain and surrounding to your emotions. Take a deep breath and allow your body to open up and add a little smile! 

Down dog is the classic inversion to help bring fresh oxygenated blood to the brain as well as decompress your spine, release tension from your neck and shoulders as well as stretch your chest and legs. I like to see this pose as an instant mood booster! 

Also a great inversion to move the blood around your body and it works into the hips where we physically hold a lot of stress and tension! Imagine the stress rolling off your back and breathe deeply as you release your head, neck and shoulders. 

This light and playful pose and help release tension in your shoulders, open up the chest and play around with your balance bringing a playful aspect to your practice. In this pose get creative and see what you can do. 

Positive psychology and happiness science is one of the many topics covered in our 200 Yoga Teacher Training where we aim to teach you not only how to share your passion for yoga but also how to be a confident, creative and expressive person- discover the best version of yourself! Check it out at www.Circasana.com