Yoga makes me angry. Am I doing something wrong?

July 2, 2020 12:56 PM

So, I love basically every form of exercise I've ever tried. Except yoga. This is inconvenient, because my wife is a yoga enthusiast and I'd love to share it with her, and I'm convinced of its benefits. However, basically every time I get into a yoga pose, I start feeling frustrated and bored, and wondering why I'm doing it. It just seems like an arbitrary series of discomforts in a way that, say, strength training doesn't. (Note that I meditate: it's not just that I don't like sitting still.) Am I doing something fundamentally wrong? Is there a mindset issue here? Has anyone here overcome this and started enjoying yoga?
posted by insteadofapricots to Health & Fitness (28 answers total)

I think you probably just don't like it!

That's okay. I hate running. I like to walk and I love biking and I like to play sports where running is involved, but every few months I decide I'm "going for a run" and 2 minutes in I feel what I can only describe as "aggressively bored" and angry and all kinds of bad feelings.

My husband runs sometimes and I'd love to join him but no way, running is a mismatch for me!

You can try telling yourself you are enjoying something while doing it, even when you aren't. Sometimes this works. When I first started playing soccer I pretty much just repeated "I like team sports, this is fun" the entire time. Eventually I did start liking it, but I was invested in wanted to play on a team with some friends, so I had stakes. Yoga is pretty difficult, some of the discomfort you feel WILL ease, but it's also okay to just not like things!
posted by euphoria066 at 1:04 PM on July 2, 2020 [5 favorites]

You might try a different class/instructor. I've grown to love yoga over time not only because of what it helps me do (keep this older body's core strong, build strength and flexibility) but because of teachers who have helped me not get angry at what my body can't yet do. Indeed, I don't think yoga at my local studio is primarily "meditative," even though it can have meditative elements. The teacher should be able to tell you why you're doing the pose, what deep muscles it requires, what kinds of freedoms and flexibilities it can help prepare you for. In other words, if you're just being told to get into poses and stay there, you probably don't have a good teacher.
posted by correcaminos at 1:28 PM on July 2, 2020 [3 favorites]

I find it frustrating, but not boring. It makes me angry in the moment sometimes because it makes me feel inadequate, incapable, not as good as the people who can do a smooth transition from down dog into lunge :(

But I also love yoga because I can feel myself slowly (creakily) getting slightly better and stronger. And I really struggle in life with lack of patience and follow through and that exact type of frustration I feel every time I can’t quite do the pose. So for me it’s really good practice to experience that feeling and work on accepting slow progress and not being perfect.

I also found the style practiced by Yoga with Adriene on YouTube to be a much better fit for me than other classes I’d tried, because she encourages you to shift during the movements (wiggling, bending your knees, moving around) and in especially tough poses that makes a big difference for me.

If you truly find it boring, instead of wanting to quit because it’s uncomfortable to feel frustrated, I think that’s different. Typically if you’re angry and frustrated you’re not bored at the same time :)
posted by sallybrown at 1:29 PM on July 2, 2020 [4 favorites]

I've been thinking that the core benefits of yoga for people -- caveat: I don't do yoga -- are not about exercise per se. Practitioners get a social experience, an experience of being comfortable moving their bodies around other people, moving their bodies at all, paying attention to how they themselves feel. That plus relaxation without formally meditating or following another (time consuming) spiritual practice. It's also a place of quiet and calm, which is missing from a lot of lives.

The physical fitness benefits are real, truly, but the other benefits might account for the popularity of yoga.
posted by amtho at 1:32 PM on July 2, 2020 [1 favorite]

There are so many types of yoga tho and so many different things you can focus on. There are some yoga workouts (I mostly do YT videos these days, or my own sessions) that kick my butt, and I do do weightlifting! Try this one for instance and tell me you're not sore the next day.

There are also a bunch of yoga poses that feel so good because it is just what I needed in that moment (mostly around my tense back and shoulders). Discomfort, sure, but just the right kind. Aaaaaaah. But this took a while, and you will need to learn to listen to your body (and also start feeling the effects).

What helps, in terms of "ugh, this hurts/feels bad" is to back off. I also had/have this tendency to crank into a pose and push myself just that little bit further into that stretch because goddammit I want to get the most of it. But that's actually bad. Just ease off a bit until it stops being uncomfortable and frustrating. If you're in a pose for so long you get bored (rather than uncomfortable & wanting it to end), find a practise that is less yin-focused (where poses are held for a long time).
posted by ClarissaWAM at 1:42 PM on July 2, 2020 [2 favorites]

I decided at some point that the real purpose of yoga is to be able to meditate in the different postures. Since you don't get angry meditating (or do you?) you might think of it as a kind of meditation.
posted by Obscure Reference at 1:48 PM on July 2, 2020

I love to exercise and to put my all into it. I gave yoga a real try. For 6 months, I tried various studios and teachers. I almost always finished a class feeling frustrated.

I finally figured out it was because I never felt as though I was able to let the clutch out. Just the opposite. It was all about holding, waiting, and stillness. Oh, and thinking about every little movement like I was performing surgery. Gah! I’m stressed out just thinking about it.

I don’t think you’re doing it wrong. You just don’t like yoga. Right now, btw, I’m typing this after just having finished working out on the stairclimber and treadmill. Feels great! I never felt that way after yoga. Go forth into your yoga-free future.
posted by MissPitts at 1:51 PM on July 2, 2020 [5 favorites]

Yoga isn't for everyone, but I love it because the philosophical framework helps me push through the physical discomforts. When a pose is hard to hold, my mind goes all over the place. In yogic terms, these are fluctuations of the mind (in Sanskrit, vrittis)--and the ability to calm them is the philosophical practice of yoga. I love the challenge of calming my mind in the middle of a long hold in an uncomfortable position. Doing that is one of the very few things in my life that makes me feel like a total badass.

Practicing self-restraint in poses is also a welcome challenge to my ego. Instead of going too far too fast, instead of trying to twist into a pretzel, how can I find the edge--where a pose feels hard, but not too hard--and stay there? How can I hold myself back from throwing my unprepared body into a shape and move with more intelligence, even if it means it doesn't look how it's "supposed" to? For me, that's difficult. That's the kind of challenge I'm looking for, not just a physical one.

I also love that I still find the most basic poses, which I've practiced over and over again, challenging. If I find a pose too easy and my mind wanders, I check my alignment and activate my bandhas. Nine times out of ten, the pose feels too easy because my alignment is off and I'm not activating all the correct muscles. Over time, this has helped me correct old habits, and my posture has improved significantly.

If these sorts of challenges appeal to you but you haven't found them in a yoga class, you may just not have found the right teacher. The first yoga class I ever went to (thirteen years ago!), I was bored out of my mind and wondered why anyone would pay money to lie on the floor in various positions with strangers. I now know that was because it was a yin yoga class, and the stretches felt like nothing because I'm hypermobile. The only reason I attended another class was because I had a three-day trial pass at the yoga studio. The next class I took blew my mind, and I've been practicing ever since.

My favorite teacher is Marco Rojas, who currently teaches on Instagram three days a week. He is a master at weaving yogic philosophy and alignment cues into practice. He won't be everyone's cup of tea, but he's a fantastic teacher who really knows his stuff.
posted by saltypup at 2:07 PM on July 2, 2020 [7 favorites]

I don't know, but just wanted to chime in to tell you you're not alone. It's been a long time since I tried it, but I hated it.

(NB: I have congenitally very tight muscles and joints, to the point of requiring frequent orthopedic interventions for regular injuries resulting from the congenital tendency. I was in my mid 30s by the time an orthopedist explained to me that these difficulties were something I was born with, and not remotely "my fault." Prior to that I'd spent many many years wondering why stretching exercises, particularly on the floor, hurt me so much more than other people, and - because I'm also chubby - being ashamed of being inflexible/"not fit." I'm mentioning this just in case something like this may play a role for you too.)
posted by fingersandtoes at 2:12 PM on July 2, 2020 [2 favorites]

For me, I think it's the feeling that I'm not getting what everyone else seems to be. Whenever someone talks about their own yoga practice, it's always in gushing tones like "OMG yoga has been so wonderful for me, I'm a different person now". And like, I enjoy yoga to a certain degree. I like the stretching parts of my exercise routines and stuff, and so yoga stretching feels good and helpful. But that's all. I don't feel like I've awakened anything. I just have looser calves and hips now. I don't know what your expectations are, but if you go in hoping to have a life-changing experience and you just do some stretching, that's a pretty big letdown. Maybe that's at play with you?

I would also argue with your premise that strength training isn't an arbitrary series of discomforts. You would probably say that it's not arbitrary because you're targeting certain muscles, but so does yoga. Yoga isn't any more or less arbitrary than any other exercise; they're all fairly arbitrary, if you really think about it. But yoga is a pretty highly-developed system. It's not like some people just decided "OK do this" and now everybody does what they. The poses have been developed over centuries as part of a logical system. So that's a question you can ask yourself: why does being on the floor on all fours holding your hips in the air (downward facing dog) feel so much more arbitrary than being on the floor on all fours bending your elbows to push yourself up and down (pushups)? See where that leads.
posted by kevinbelt at 2:14 PM on July 2, 2020 [2 favorites]

If you haven’t tried it, you might prefer a vinyasa or “flow” style class, where you focus on breathing evenly throughout the whole class and move continuously through a series of postures in a way that is directly linked to your own breath - you transition between poses for the length of your breath, and as you move on to the next breath you are transitioning into the next pose, continuously. The physiological calming benefits of 60-90 minutes of deep breathing do wonders for me on their own, and my personal experience is that the continuous movement (and challenge level!) keeps me from getting bored. But I don’t find it nearly as enjoyable or beneficial if I don’t consistently keep my focus on my breath, even when it’s the same class or same sequence as I might normally do.
posted by somedaycatlady at 2:17 PM on July 2, 2020 [5 favorites]

You describe yoga as a series of discomforts so I was wondering: do you find it hard or painful? If so I would encourage you to seek out information around modifications for poses. I am overweight but I have done lots of workshops and reading around modifying poses to be safer for people carrying weight or to accommodate your tummy in poses etc. I would check out Yogajournal and those sort of sites for information about how to approach yoga with particular bodily situations. Maybe you would like it better if it wasn't so uncomfortable?

But, I mean, you're allowed not to like it. Maybe it's not just for you.
posted by unicorn chaser at 2:21 PM on July 2, 2020

Have you tried a non-yoga stretching class? How did you feel about that?

There are many benefits to stretching, but you don't have to do yoga to stretch. It sounds like you want to connect with your wife through yoga, maybe she would like to try a non-yoga stretching class with you.
posted by yohko at 2:25 PM on July 2, 2020 [1 favorite]

This started happening to me too. Especially when the yoga teacher starts in on a bunch of vague spiritual catch phrases that sound nice but mean nothing, my cynicism kicks in. I have found that yoga is only useful when I have a problem. Either I'm anxious and need to connect with the breath, or I'm sore from something and need to stretch. As a regular workout I believe it leaves a lot to be desired, and it doesn't burn as many calories as cardio and isnt as effective as weight-training.
posted by winterportage at 2:32 PM on July 2, 2020

You may just not like yoga, which is fine, but it may also depend what kind of yoga you are doing. There a a lot of different types with different focuses, and you can dislike one kind but enjoy another.

When I first started doing yoga many years ago, it was a Hatha Yoga class that focused on long, slow, deep stretching, and I loved it. (I was in the middle of divorce, and something destressing was extremely useful.) But more recently, when I tried to go back to yoga, nearly everything was flow-based yoga, and I discovered I absolutely hate that- instead of being relaxing and very stretching, the class just consisted of repeating the same thing multiple times without very little explanation and at a pace that didn't allow me to either stretch properly, or get any cardio benefit- it just felt like trying to half-assedly imitate the instructor for no particular reason. After finding myself simultaneously bored and confused and pissed off multiple times, I found a place offering Hatha yoga again, and that was again fine. Because all I really want is stretching, and nothing else. (And then they switched over to flow only as well, sigh.)

On the other hand, I know people who like faster moving flow yoga and find Hatha Yoga really boring. So it really depends what you are looking for out of the class.

If you want to keep trying yoga, I'd suggest trying a couple different varieties in case one works better for you. But it may just not be your thing.
posted by Dorothea Ladislaw at 2:33 PM on July 2, 2020 [4 favorites]

I find there are poses that release emotions as much as muscular tension. You know how some people carry tension in specific areas? Mine is my glutes. So a LOT of yoga pulls the tension out of those muscles but also causes an internal tension between the emotional stuff and how my body reacts. A friend and I noticed that in particular deep hip stretches would make her cry sometimes, and I would often have upswellings of sadness, or fear. The goal was to be in the moment and breathe through it, because even if the situation and emotions remained, at least I haven't got locked glutes now.

That said, there is a spiritual element to yoga that, much like meditation, has been erased and minimised as it has been co-opted by the wellness industry. It makes for a disconnect that is detrimental unless you can fully settle into the kind of meaningless faff of western yoga, or the physical component of stretching and holding that does have an impact on the body that weight training and cardio don't, because of its focus on holding stretches and moving through them.

That all said, I don't do yoga now. Scoliosis means I have to be unbalanced in my exercise routines in order to combat the curvature, too many positions increase the torque on my pelvis*, and with large breasts any inversion (including downward dog) is suffocating unless I'm strapping my chest down. It just doesn't work for me and that is okay.

*Because of the curvature I can deepen stretches unevenly which is not helped by listening to my body since it doesn't hurt at all, until the overstretched and weakened muscles on one side give up because the loading is perpetually uneven.
posted by geek anachronism at 2:51 PM on July 2, 2020 [8 favorites]

I hate yoga, as I have experienced it here in the US. My doctor recommended I try it and when I said no, she told me that she hated yoga too but felt like she was supposed to recommend it because we're women in Seattle. I love exercising in general and do my PT exercises twice a day but mainstream American yoga? Definitely not for me.

Maybe there are other ways of doing yoga that wouldn't irritate me; I feel bad saying "I hate yoga," given what we've done to it.
posted by The corpse in the library at 2:58 PM on July 2, 2020 [7 favorites]

Yoga is a religious/spiritual/philosophical practice. It's not everyone's cup of tea -- and that's ok! I don't get anything out of consuming the body and blood of an early 30s Middle Eastern martyr, but lots of people do, and that's ok too!

I think yoga as it's practiced in the US is particularly hard to get into, because it has such a skinny white woman vibe, with all the appropriation that goes along with that. Obviously #notallyoga, or whatever, but if you are interested in exploring yoga, maybe look for instructors who can provide some of the spiritual context of why the poses are the way they are.
posted by basalganglia at 3:24 PM on July 2, 2020 [8 favorites]

It just seems like an arbitrary series of discomforts in a way that, say, strength training doesn't.

What is it about strength training that makes it seem non-arbitrary? Is it putting numbers on your performance? Isolating single muscles? Some other difference? That might help you figure out whether the difference you're feeling is a real, unreconcilable one, or one that you can work past.
posted by nebulawindphone at 3:25 PM on July 2, 2020 [1 favorite]

I hate yoga. I am South Asian, and I was raised by a Marxist mother, and anytime a yoga teacher starts in on the spiritual aspects of yoga I get angry. This is compounded by the fact that where I live in the Hudson Valley, most yoga teachers are white and most of the students are white and HOLY FUCKING SHIT I do NOT want to hear white people appropriating a spirituality (and practice, to be honest) from my people, regardless of my own personal feelings about religion.

My stepmother is a yoga teacher - she is also South Asian, and when I visit her and my dad (they live in the Bay Area) I can usually grit my teeth and get through one of her classes, but that is largely because I love her personally. Her students are mostly white and they just loooooove when she gets all Hindu on them - she plays it up intentionally depending on the size and demographics of the class. It makes me chuckle.

Bottom line: it's really, really okay not to like yoga. There are many valid reasons not to like it, be it boredom, frustration, or politics (like me). It's okay to not like the same excersize as your wife - I assume she's not bothered by your dislike of yoga. Find something that works for you - that's really the only way to find an excersize routine that sticks. I used to love running until I busted my knee during a freak band rehearsal accident (long story), but I've taken up swimming and love it and I also love weight-lifting. I am eagerly awaiting my gym to reopen so I can get back in the water; in the meantime I take my dog for walks and get some strength training in at home with a cheapy set of dumbbells I got from Amazon.

Really. It's okay not to like yoga. I, a random Internet Person, give you permission to hate it and find something else you actually like to do instead.
posted by nayantara at 3:28 PM on July 2, 2020 [18 favorites]

Coming in to say that the shapes and postures (asana) are just one of eight limbs of yoga. Thanks to a large multi-national corporation who has glamorized it and turned the practice into a fashion statement first and a workout second, this really couldn't be further from what yoga actually is. It has been appropriated in a way that I find incredibly uncomfortable, so much so that I no longer teacher. Ahem. End rant.

You mentioned that you meditate, so you're already doing one of the other limbs (dhyana). Sorry, you can't say you hate yoga anymore!! :)

What helped me to become better acquainted with the postures/shapes was studying the anatomy and kinesiology behind each of the postures. Which muscle groups are engaged when I do Posture A vs. Posture B? There are books and apps and all sorts of things if this is of interest to you.

If you're bored in a pose, there is almost always a way you can kick it up a notch. For example, when in child's pose, press your palms into the ground, elongating your spine and sending your hips back towards your toes. You'll feel it.

Random internet stranger/former yoga teacher signing off, giving you permission to dislike whatever you damn well please! :)
posted by Juniper Toast at 3:49 PM on July 2, 2020 [7 favorites]

What kind of yoga are you doing? I don't really like the styles where you stay in a single pose for very long (i.e. hatha). I like yoga where you move through sequences in a flowing rhythm (vinyasa). I also love power yoga (incorporates hand weights and movements like pushups, lunges, bicep curls, crunches, etc.). I get bored in a class where we sit in poses instead of moving through challenging sequences that get ones heart-rate up. And after trying power yoga that's my absolute favorite.

I also like to have goals, so I am usually working towards specific yoga poses (arm balances and inversion for me, but less flexible people sometimes work towards getting into a specific pose that requires flexibility. Or towards mastering very long single-leg balances, like standing splits, warrior 3, half-moon pose, natarajasana, etc.).
posted by amaire at 3:56 PM on July 2, 2020

Yeah, nthing that you don’t have to like yoga! I will also validate that I know other people who have the same emotional reaction to the overall vibe of yoga.

That said — if you really want to give it another shot, and if it is specifically the arbitrariness that bothers you, you might like Iyengar yoga better than your more standard vinyasa style class. The Iyengar instructor I took yoga from back in grad school was awesome about drilling form and breaking down the poses in a lot of mechanical detail, so that you actually understood what the point of a particular pose was, and where in your body you were supposed to feel it. Out of the yoga classes I’ve tried, I felt that Iyengar was also way better about meeting people where they are and showing you lots of modifications to suit variations in anatomy.
posted by en forme de poire at 6:47 PM on July 2, 2020 [2 favorites]

I did tons of yoga back in the 80's when I was employed in a rather stressful job. I kept waiting for some sort of calmness to evolve, but I believe it actually exacerbated a work rage. I would actually mentally drill down to anger triggers as I did the routines. I still liked the physical effects of yoga, wish I had stayed with it.
posted by Chitownfats at 7:27 PM on July 2, 2020

I don't like yoga either, but it's because I don't have the anatomy to do the yoga moves and that makes me angry. I don't feel like I have to like yoga, personally. There are other things i can do instead, you know?
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:00 PM on July 2, 2020 [1 favorite]

It's OK to hate yoga (I hate yoga) and it's OK for your wife to have a thing that is just hers that you don't share.
posted by DarlingBri at 1:51 AM on July 3, 2020 [3 favorites]

My read on this as someone who also doesn't like yoga (and gets angry while trying to meditate), whereas more active forms of exercise are fine, is that it's just a thing for some people. I suspect it's one of those things where persevering and embracing the practice and the skills it builds will eventually make it click (and/or give you better tools for dealing with it making you angry), but I also strongly believe that it's okay to choose not to push through to that point.

I think the same is true for me with meditation: I could push through my discomfort and most likely learn some valuable skills, but I only have a finite number of wakeful hours and it's just not what I want to invest my time and energy into right now. That might change in the future, but it's very much okay for me to say no to meditation (or for you to say no to yoga) right this moment.
posted by terretu at 2:01 AM on July 3, 2020

I enjoy most exercise and love strength training and it's hard for me to like yoga, but I do now. I think my experience might help.

It just seems like an arbitrary series of discomforts in a way that, say, strength training doesn't.

I always loved how progress in strength training is so visible and straightforward. I like seeing improvement. What helped me with yoga was noticing two things were going on: I wasn't very good at it, and it isn't easy to track progress as one gets better. My experience of feeling those things felt a lot like what you wrote: I was just doing X and then Y and waiting in poses that didn't get any better and then it was over. "What's the point?" The point is that it's not arbitrary, the improvement just isn't as visible. It really does keep me from neglecting many of the odd corners of my body.

Yoga got a lot more rewarding — and I did start seeing progress — once I accepted that I wasn't very good at it *yet*, and that I was just going to have to wait weeks or even months between noticing the improvements I made. This makes it a very different kind of practice. Its vagueness can still be challenging, but the benefits are there.
posted by daveliepmann at 1:47 PM on July 3, 2020 [1 favorite]