Please use this forum to ask any questions you may have about yoga in general or Yin Yoga in particular, or to discuss anything you have discovered that may be of general interest. Note, spam will be removed and the user deleted, and this includes putting website in your posting that are purely commercial.
I am sorry to hear about your challenges, but I applaud your efforts to be whole. Stress and anxiety can be very debilitating, but your attempts to self-medicate may not be the best way to go. Pranayama, like all powerful medicines, can do wonders or cause grave harm. I would suggest you practice it only under the guidance of an experienced teacher.
You ask if your practice is aggravating your condition: it could be, but it is impossible to answer this without seeing you and knowing much more about you. Before prescribing pranayama a yoga therapist would want to know much more about your history, physical health, diet, relationships, work, sleep patterns as well as your use of drugs or other medicines. Hyperarousal may be due to too much caffeine or it may point to a deeper pathology. Before you can treat it, it is good to know the cause.
For the pranayama practice you currently have you are wise to avoid breath retentions and stick to simple alternate nostril breathing. I would even avoid ujjayi breathing for now, or limit it to just a few minutes. But again, without knowing you, I can't really tell you what to do. I would encourage you to find a therapist who is willing to work as hard as you are to regain your health and wholeness.
thanks for the reply bernie
several others have suggested that i take a break from pranayama for a bit and work on meditation.
im going to stop for a while and see how i feel.
i dont take any caffeine and only get a small amount of sugar daily.
i want to find a really good teacher that can help me but i dont know how easy thats going to be.
