As mind-body practices, yoga and meditation present many advantages. Nevertheless, in case you apply one with out the opposite, you won’t 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 apply and vice versa.
Why Ought to You Follow Yoga and Meditation Collectively?
Meditation and yoga work collectively synergistically to profit one another. Some kinds 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, a licensed 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 together 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 apply of yoga will 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 may facilitate this focus for meditation,” says Swartz.
Yoga additionally focuses on the breath via pranayama, that are respiratory strategies that hold you calm and centered. With a constant meditation apply, you’re getting ready your physique and thoughts for this breath work throughout yoga poses and constructing focus and focus via every circulation.
Follow these workouts 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 few calm and centered thoughts, in order that all the things you do all through your day is a meditation,” Swartz says. “Your entire day might be a part of your apply.”
Do You Meditate Earlier than or After Yoga?
“There isn’t any steadfast rule as as to whether or not you apply one or the opposite first,” Swartz says. Nevertheless, 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 comfy, 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 the event you’re an early riser and wish to align with the deeper traditions of the religious apply, meditate as early as doable,” he says, then do a delicate 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 not less than 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 have interaction in a single or the opposite, your thoughts and physique will thanks for adopting these historical practices to your fashionable life.
The advantages of yoga
The advantages of meditation
- Meditation can increase your well-being and provide 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 hold it wholesome. Knowledge 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 will 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 applications for all objectives and talent ranges.
Mix one class every week with meditation. In the event 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.
