Along with doing the physical techniques we talked about in my previous blog post, you'll be incorporating both breathing & relaxation techniques, and meditation techniques.
Let's look over breathing & relaxation techniques first.
Breathing & Relaxation Techniques
This will help you take in more oxygen, relax your muscles and help you relieve stress.
I'm always surprised by how calm I feel, sometimes, even just after 5 minutes of performing these techniques.
Doing intensive workouts will turn on the Sympathetic Nervous System (SNS) —which will trigger your hormones to make you feel like you're escaping from danger.
In contrast, Yoga turns on the Parasympathetic Nervous System (PNS), which makes you feel the exact opposite — it gives you a sense of relaxation and calmness.
This helps you lower your cortisol levels, meaning, you feel less stressed, and your body's hormonal systems will be more balanced.
Yoga's unique approach of combining both physical movements & relaxation techniques, can help you get relief from chronic pain, increase your energy levels and help you sleep better.
Meditation Techniques
The third main component of yoga is meditation.
Meditation helps you build a mind-body connection. This will help you improve your self-control over both your mind, and body.
Imagine being able to get a good grip of your wandering mind or feeling confident about your physical abilities.
That can help you a lot throughout the in's and out's of your day.
What's interesting is that Yoga meditation is scientifically proven to help reduce stress, treat anxiety and depression. (source)
Next time you feel like your having anxiety, you can do yoga to help make you feel better.
Yoga can also give your brain a boost.
It has been scientifically proven to enhance your cognitive functions, meaning it helps you to focus and is good for your memory. (source)
Yoga can give you the brain power to help you make better decisions, do great at your job and bring out more of your inner creativity.
The most common way meditation is done in a yoga session is through what's known as guided meditation.
In a guided meditation setting, your yoga trainer or instructor will help you meditate under their guidance.
You can do meditation on your own if you want to.
I learned to do it on my own after having done quite a few guided sessions.
You can play some good meditation music in the background too if you want.
I hope this blog post and the previous one helped you get an understanding of what are the parts and pieces of yoga.
In my next blog post, we will look at how long are yoga sessions, the difficulty levels and what equipment you would need to start practicing yoga.
Image Credits:
Photo by Elly Fairytale from Pexels
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