By Dietitian Sheela Seharawat,
Founder Diet Clinic Health Care Pvt Ltd
The ancient art or yoga and meditation has been used through centuries and cultures to keep the mind and body synced and keep it in a healthy state of well-being. Following the path of yoga improves our balance, endurance, strength and flexibility, whereas, practicing medication keeps our mind sharp and focused, relieves us from stress, tensions and anxiety and helps strengthening our immunity.
Science has proven that taking out time from our daily schedules to shut down and practice yoga and meditation has endless mind and body benefits. It helps regain sensuous feelings and the feeling of being concrete and centered. One of the most significant advantages that it provides us, is changing the way how we live our life – creating a perfect balance between the body, mind and soul.
Achieve a more realistic and meaningful life with yoga and meditation
Considering meditation as an integral part of yoga practice, the benefits of meditation almost seems inherent to that of yoga. Although some benefits are exclusive to practicing yoga techniques as they involve certain physical traits, but both are highly beneficial in changing your life and ways of living for better. Let’s discover some of the main benefits separately:
Yoga:-
- Increases core strength: it helps in developing and nurturing a strong core strength through its various poses and techniques that provides endurance and overall strength.
- Increases body flexibility and improves postures: practicing various postures, which works on various joint and muscles of the body increases flexibility. Common modern day ailments like headaches and backaches are well treated through this technique. Many joints and muscles that are normally not involved in normal exercises are all stretched and touched with yoga, making a perfect harmony of the total body.
- Helps in controlling blood pressure: yoga has been used as an alternative therapy to treat diseases like that of blood pressures, heart rates, control of body temperatures, respiratory ailments metabolic rates, high stress and many more. The best part of all that it is all without any side effect.
- Massaging of all body parts: yoga happens to be one holistic technique that approaches all the parts and as well the internal organs of the body allowing very part of the body to benefit out of it.
Meditation:-
- It helps in lowering oxygen consumption, thereby, decreasing it by almost 10 to 20%. This leads to a deep state of relaxation. It reduces pre-menstrual syndrome and anxiety attacks by controlling ad lowering the levels of blood lactate.
- It helps in controlling emotional distress. All of us goes under emotional distress with or without our knowledge. The relaxation benefits of meditation calms our senses down and helps controlling our emotions, rather than our emotions controlling us.
- Improves the functionality of the heart as it allows clear and more blood flow to the heart thereby keeping it healthy and working well. It also helps in controlling erratic heart rates, blood pressure and cholesterol levels.
- It helps us getting better out of all our phobias. Fear is one of the most difficult aspect that we humans face. It could be the fear of anything from height to water and open spaces or darkness and even spiders and cockroaches. Meditation helps and supports our brains to overcome such phobias or fear by controlling them.
- You become more focused and self-confident. Practicing meditation helps us in controlling our mind and thoughts. One who can controls the brain, can control emotions, stress and feelings and stay focused on targets and become more self-confident and profound.
Simple Tips to Start Yoga Meditation
The beginning of an active meditation is to focus all your thoughts on something specific. The main idea behind this specific way is to take all your focus and streamline all your thoughts on one thing in particular, something specific. In the beginning the mind will float on many things, and every time it does, bring it back to the one specific.
Want to start, try these out:
- Sit at one corner or one side of a while to begin with. Chose a time of the day when you are free and without any disturbances and also will be able to concentrate for some while. The best time to do it just after you are done with your yoga practices.
- Sit and maintain a good posture wherever – on the ground or in a quiet corner or may be on your chair.
- Gaze and focus on any one object like a candle flame, or a black dot on a piece of paper. You can even close your eyes and follow the breathing rhythm as you do in yoga.
Keep on following these three techniques for some time and you are there. Always remember – meditation is not about achieving a blank state if mind, but it is about resisting the temptations of reacting to your thoughts that pop’s out in your head.