As mind-body practices, yoga and meditation present many advantages. Nevertheless, for those who apply one with out the opposite, you won’t be getting probably the most out of both behavior. You’ll be able to 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 Apply 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 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 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 apply of yoga will help you to be extra conscious 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 pranayama, that are respiratory methods that maintain you calm and centered. With a constant meditation apply, you might be making ready your physique and thoughts for this breath work throughout yoga poses and constructing focus and focus by every circulate.
Apply these workouts sufficient and also you would possibly begin to discover their results in your on a regular basis life as nicely.
“We’re taught that yoga is all a couple of calm and centered thoughts, in order that all the things you do all through your day is a meditation,” Swartz says. “Your complete day could 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 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. “For those who’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 delicate apply.
Later within the day, you would possibly wish to circulate earlier than you sit. “In case your apply is kind of rigorous, you’d wish to finish your bodily apply with a minimum of 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, 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 historical practices on your fashionable life.
The advantages of yoga
The advantages of meditation
- Meditation can enhance your well-being and provide extra 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 would possibly 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 packages for all objectives and ability ranges.
Mix one class per week with meditation. For those who’re new to the apply, BODi options guided meditation packages in Sound Meditation or Unstress that vary from 10 to 45 minutes in size.
