As mind-body practices, yoga and meditation present many advantages. Nonetheless, in the event you apply one with out the opposite, you may not be getting probably the most out of both behavior. You’ll be able to 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 apply and vice versa.
Why Ought to You Follow 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 apply.
“In yoga, meditation is all the things,” 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 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 can assist you to be extra aware in your meditations. “A constant hatha yoga apply is vital so as to have the ability to sit nonetheless in a tall, upright, alert pose that may facilitate this focus for meditation,” says Swartz.
Yoga additionally focuses on the breath by way of pranayama, that are respiratory methods that hold you calm and targeted. With a constant meditation apply, you might be getting ready your physique and thoughts for this breath work throughout yoga poses and constructing focus and focus by way of every stream.
Follow these workouts sufficient and also you would possibly begin to discover their results in your on a regular basis life as effectively.
“We’re taught that yoga is all a few calm and targeted thoughts, in order that all the things you do all through your day is a meditation,” Swartz says. “Your entire day will be a part of your apply.”
Do You Meditate Earlier than or After Yoga?
“There isn’t a steadfast rule as as to if 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 organize 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 need to align with the deeper traditions of the religious apply, meditate as early as attainable,” he says, then do a mild apply.
Later within the day, you would possibly need to stream earlier than you sit. “In case your apply is kind of rigorous, you’d need to finish your bodily apply with at the least a couple of minutes of deep leisure 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 on your fashionable life.
The advantages of yoga
The advantages of meditation
- Meditation can increase your well-being and provide 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 hold it wholesome. Knowledge from the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences means that meditation would possibly assist protect each grey and white matter within the mind, which can assist 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 objectives and ability ranges.
Mix one class per week with meditation. In case you’re new to the apply, BODi options guided meditation packages in Sound Meditation or Unstress that vary from 10 to 45 minutes in size.
