As mind-body practices, yoga and meditation present many advantages. Nonetheless, when you apply one with out the opposite, you won’t be getting essentially the most out of both behavior. You may really improve your expertise each on the mat and in your pillow by combining the 2.
Right here’s how meditation can deepen your connection to your yoga apply and vice versa.
Why Ought to You Observe Yoga and Meditation Collectively?
Meditation and yoga work collectively synergistically to learn one another. Some kinds of yoga, together with kundalini yoga and sure types of hatha yoga, already embody meditation within the apply.
“In yoga, meditation is all the pieces,” says Sam Rudra Swartz, a licensed meditation trainer and hatha yoga teacher. “The poses put together the physique, the respiration practices assist put together the thoughts, and then you definitely spend this time alone together with your [thoughts] the place you set effort towards concentrating on precisely one factor,” whether or not it’s your breath, a mantra, or sensations in your physique.
Plus, the bodily apply of yoga may help you to be extra conscious in your meditations. “A constant hatha yoga apply is necessary so as to have the ability to sit nonetheless in a tall, upright, alert pose that can facilitate this focus for meditation,” says Swartz.
Yoga additionally focuses on the breath by pranayama, that are respiration strategies that maintain you calm and targeted. With a constant meditation apply, you’re making ready your physique and thoughts for this breath work throughout yoga poses and constructing focus and focus by every circulation.
Observe these workouts sufficient and also you may begin to discover their results in your on a regular basis life as properly.
“We’re taught that yoga is all a few calm and targeted thoughts, in order that all the pieces you do all through your day is a meditation,” Swartz says. “Your complete day will be a part of your apply.”
Do You Meditate Earlier than or After Yoga?
“There is no such thing as a steadfast rule as as to whether or not you apply one or the opposite first,” Swartz says. Nonetheless, historically, a yoga apply helps a meditation apply. Within the authoritative textual content, The Yoga Sutras, bodily apply (asana) is meant to be regular and cozy, to arrange for longer, sitting meditations.
Nonetheless, Swartz says it’s OK to be versatile about which one you do first. Some meditations work greatest very first thing within the morning when life is quiet and the solar is rising. “In case you’re an early riser and wish to align with the deeper traditions of the non secular apply, meditate as early as doable,” he says, then do a mild apply.
Later within the day, you may wish to circulation earlier than you sit. “In case your apply is sort of rigorous, you’ll wish to finish your bodily apply with at the very least a couple of minutes of deep rest and meditation,” he says.
What Are the Advantages of Yoga and Meditation?
Yoga and meditation have quite a few documented and researched advantages, lots of which overlap. Whether or not you have interaction in a single or the opposite, your thoughts and physique will thanks for adopting these historic practices on your trendy life.
The advantages of yoga
The advantages of meditation
- Meditation can enhance your well-being and supply further advantages on your thoughts, like serving to elevate temper and ease stress.
- Researchers now know meditation can change your mind construction and thus assist maintain it wholesome. Information from the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences means that meditation may assist protect each grey and white matter within the mind, which may help gradual age-related decreases in each.
Prepared to achieve all the advantages of meditation and yoga? Begin with Yoga52 or Beachbody Yoga Studio, which have courses and applications for all objectives and talent ranges.
Mix one class every week with meditation. In case you’re new to the apply, BODi options guided meditation applications in Sound Meditation or Unstress that vary from 10 to 45 minutes in size.
