Yoga and Meditation

Yoga and meditation

Yoga is developing as a part of life. You can integrate body poses and breathing exercises with  meditation to give a peace of mind and have peace with the world.

Meditation comes from intense concentration, where you focus only on a single object so that you think of nothing besides your awareness of that object (Some religions may find that their idea of prayer could fall under this definition). In Yoga, meditation is the highest point of the Eight Limbs of Yoga.

The Eight Limbs

These “eight limbs” define Yoga as a lifestyle:

• Your attitude to the world around you
• Your attitudes towards yourself
• Physical posturing
• Breathing exercises,
• Withdrawing the senses
• Concentrating
• Contemplating
• And finally enlightenment.

You will go into a state of enlightenment that will result in the use and development of the other seven. Meditation combines withdrawing the senses, concentrating, and contemplating to be the final state that can be accomplished before enlightenment.

Health Benefits

At the very least, meditation calms the mind and offers a number of health benefits even before enlightenment. With regular mediation will help reduce all the stress and anxiety. It will also lower your blood pressure and it will decrease your risk of a heart attack. It can improve concentration, clarity of thought, and release your creative side.

Meditation is not easy for many people and takes practice. Clearing the mind of extraneous thought is difficult. You will want to sit somewhere with your back and head straight. It is best to learn some basic breathing exercises first, which will help you get started. You will then want to close your eyes, breathe in through your nose and exhale through your mouth. You will want to focus on your breath. You will be able to get cool air to enter through and the warm air leaves. Focusing on the way that you breathe is a good way to start meditating – it has a natural calming effect which prepares you for the next stage. You should start off with some short meditations that last a few minutes. Most beginners will start off counting their breaths so that they can focus on the breathing, but you will only want to count to four and then start over again.

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