As mind-body practices, yoga and meditation present many advantages. Nonetheless, in the event you follow one with out the opposite, you may not be getting essentially the most out of both behavior. You possibly can truly 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 follow and vice versa.
Why Ought to You Apply Yoga and Meditation Collectively?
Meditation and yoga work collectively synergistically to profit one another. Some forms of yoga, together with kundalini yoga and sure types of hatha yoga, already embrace meditation within the follow.
“In yoga, meditation is every thing,” says Sam Rudra Swartz, an authorized meditation trainer and hatha yoga teacher. “The poses put together the physique, the respiratory practices assist put together the thoughts, and you then spend this time alone along with your [thoughts] the place you place effort towards concentrating on precisely one factor,” whether or not it’s your breath, a mantra, or sensations in your physique.
Plus, the bodily follow of yoga might help you to be extra aware in your meditations. “A constant hatha yoga follow 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 way of pranayama, that are respiratory strategies that preserve you calm and targeted. With a constant meditation follow, you’re making ready your physique and thoughts for this breath work throughout yoga poses and constructing focus and focus by way of every circulate.
Apply these workout routines sufficient and also you may begin to discover their results in your on a regular basis life as effectively.
“We’re taught that yoga is all a couple of calm and targeted thoughts, in order that every thing you do all through your day is a meditation,” Swartz says. “Your entire day might be a part of your follow.”
Do You Meditate Earlier than or After Yoga?
“There isn’t a steadfast rule as as to whether or not you follow one or the opposite first,” Swartz says. Nonetheless, historically, a yoga follow helps a meditation follow. Within the authoritative textual content, The Yoga Sutras, bodily follow (asana) is meant to be regular and comfy, to organize for longer, sitting meditations.
Nonetheless, Swartz says it’s OK to be versatile about which one you do first. Some meditations work finest very first thing within the morning when life is quiet and the solar is rising. “If you happen to’re an early riser and need to align with the deeper traditions of the religious follow, meditate as early as attainable,” he says, then do a light follow.
Later within the day, you may need to circulate earlier than you sit. “In case your follow is kind of rigorous, you’d need to finish your bodily follow with no less than 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, a lot of which overlap. Whether or not you interact in a single or the opposite, your thoughts and physique will thanks for adopting these historic practices to your fashionable life.
The advantages of yoga
The advantages of meditation
- Meditation can increase your well-being and supply further advantages to your thoughts, like serving to elevate temper and ease stress.
- Researchers now know meditation can change your mind construction and thus assist preserve 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 might help sluggish age-related decreases in each.
Prepared to realize all the advantages of meditation and yoga? Begin with Yoga52 or Beachbody Yoga Studio, which have lessons and packages for all targets and ability ranges.
Mix one class every week with meditation. If you happen to’re new to the follow, BODi options guided meditation packages in Sound Meditation or Unstress that vary from 10 to 45 minutes in size.
