An ancient practice originated in India and is now practiced by people worldwide as a way to heal and control their bodies. A practice followed by specific body postures, deep breathing, and concentration.
Yoga is the art of bringing harmony between mind and body. It has been practiced for thousands of years as a medium for unionizing an individual with universal consciousness and nature.
And when Yoga is performed with meditation, it enhances your physical and mental health leading to a divine connection between your body and mind.
So let’s explore all the aspects of this topic.
What is Yoga?
This practice is done with specific body postures with a pattern of breathing and concentration. This practice is used worldwide to heal many physical and social diseases.
“Yoga” is coined from the Sanskrit word “Yuj,” which means to join or union.
If you look back at the history of Yoga, you can find traces from northern India around 5000 years ago, which was further spread across through our Indian monks.
And this was first codified by an ancient Indian monk, “Patanjali,” around 400 B.C.
Yoga is an act of uniting your body, mind, and soul, which is divided into six branches depending upon their characteristics.
The branches are:-
- Hatha Yoga
- Raja Yoga
- Karma Yoga
- Bhakti Yoga
- Jnana Yoga
- Tantra Yoga
All this Yoga works by regulating the Chakras which every human has. These chakras are the centers of energy, emotions, thoughts, and feelings in our Physical body.
Yoga unblocks the energy of these chakras, which helps one to unify your mind, body, and soul.
There is a total of seven chakras, which are as follows.
- Sahasrara
- Ajna
- Vishuddha
- Anahata
- Manipura
- Svadhishthana
- Muladhara
And once a person learns the art of unblocking the flow of energy and regulating it properly. The person can experience many physical and mental benefits.
Yoga is performed in eight steps from the beginning to the completion for all round benefits. The steps are:- Yama, Niyama, Aasana, Pranayama, Pratyahar, Dhyana, Dharana and Samadhi.
What is Meditation?
Meditation is a practice done to heighten one’s awareness and concentration power. In this, the person sits comfortably, closes their eyes, and focuses at a certain point with normal breathing.
This practice has many proven mental benefits.
Meditation is a part of Yoga that deals with concentration and mental relaxation. First, the person gets focused on particular thoughts and breaths. This finally leads to the person being wholly focused on ideas removing all negativity from their body which relaxes their body and mind.
When you control your breathing, your thought process system also gets aligned, which helps your mind relax. Due to this, people are suggested to perform Meditation in a quiet environment to calm their chaotic thoughts of the whole day, relaxing their overworked minds.
And great mental and physical health results are seen when Yoga and Meditation are practiced together for a long continuous period.
What are the benefits:-
There is a list of benefits that one can experience after performing yoga and meditation.
It helps in managing stress and anxiety:-
Practicing yoga and meditation aligns your thought process and relaxes your mind, which helps you to manage and react less to stress and anxiety. In addition, the breathing practice regulates enough oxygen throughout the body, giving it the time and energy to respond.
Fitness and Flexibility of your physical body:-
Doing various yoga posters helps in keeping your body parts flexible and regulates the nerves in the proper places. In addition, practicing them regularly keeps your body muscles relaxed, allowing your body to feel re-energized and light.
Controlling your body weight:-
It has been seen that the ones who perform Yoga and meditation have lost a significant amount of weight which helps them keep their body well-maintained and in shape.
Emotional well-being:-
Having excellent and refreshing mental health also gives you better emotional well-being. Because one emotion is directly connected to their thoughts. So, having great control over your positive thoughts leads to significant emotional well-being.
Improve health:-
Yoga and Meditation affect our bodies. This helps cure many physical diseases and keep them in control. In addition, meditation improves your social life by making you feel refreshed, energized, and confident about your body’s activeness, fitness, and shape. Thus enhancing one’s health.
Things have certain restrictions and procedures to be followed. Similarly, yoga and Meditations have specific rule which needs to follow.
Precautions to be taken:-
Ask any trained yoga expert to help you perform the correct body posters and breathing patterns while doing any asanas.
Every person should not perform every asana. Instead, consult your Yoga trainers to get a specialized list of yogas you can perform to achieve your goal.
People with pregnancies, breathing, and bone problems need to take precautions while performing.
Conclusion
Yoga and Meditation have been and are currently performed as a vital part of their everyday schedule by many people to keep them healthy.
This practice helps them to keep their body and mind healthy and attains the union of body, mind, and soul.
So why not join this ship to experience all the excellent benefits of Yoga and Meditation?