Meditation and yoga.

Yoga and meditation.


What is meditation?

Meditation derives from the latin words Mederi and meditari. Mederi meaning is to heal and meditari meaning is to think. Relaxation for the brain.

Meditation means awareness. meditation takes its form in many ways, being aware of your breathing, lying in darkness listening to rian falling, sitting outdoors listening to the birds, infact it can be anything that eases you, anything that does not distract your mind from the moment, it
occurs when you are only aware of the moment you feel free, when the mind is scatter free, true inner peace. Meditation is a way of life, it is not prayer.

Meditation has become popular in the modern world with a variety of people. Although there are many beneficial aspects in meditating, it still has to be properly understood.

In yoga, meditation is one of the 5 principles to a healthier being, it can be truely attained by going through several stages, your personal state of mind, your posture, and your breathing, what follows is the relaxation and then your mind and body moves into the advanced stages
of meditation. The advanced stages are deeper concentration, reflection, and total immersion. You don't have to be able to perfect one of these stages in order to move on to the next, effectively meditation works using all of the stages integrated. There are instructors who will concentrate on one stage rather than all, but whichever works for you, use it.


If you want to learn more about meditation or the 5 principles of yoga, then click on the yoga book link. You can buy "The sivinanda yoga training manual".
from the shiva yoga for all website. You may also be interested in taking a look at corporate yoga
Please take a look at our yoga CD page.

I hope this information has been of some use to you.

Yoga and breathing

What is Yoga Breathing?

Learning to breath correctly through Yoga breathing or scientifically speaking 'Pranayama' helps with breath control.
Properly used the respiratory system can exchange gases (oxygen and carbon dioxide) ensuring an efficient energy system.

There are a number of exercises tailored to meet the needs of the body to maintain a healthy and vibrant life be it spiritually, physically, emotionally and mentally.

Breathing can be looked upon as the inner source of life and by monitoring our breathing habits makes us more aware of the connections between mind, body and spirit.

Our bodies go through a natural process, inhaling oxygen which charges our body with the necessary energy.
On exhaling the carbon dioxide takes away any toxins from within us, thus removing harmful poisons.

Because of the many stresses facing us each day through work, money and family pressures, we are not aware of our breathing patterns which at times of stress are shallow and short, denying our lungs the oxygen which can often lead to many serious illnesses, such as sleeping disorders and heart diseases.

Starving the body of it's oxygen can also lead to fatigue, when the body is restless
the mind is affected, therefore negative thought patterns seep in and of course this has a knock on effect, leading us back to stress and the inability to deal with it.

Why is it important to breath correctly?

Practising breathing exercises is one of the 5 main principles behind the art of yoga which was discovered in the early days by masters of yoga. They found that by practising the art of breathing properly feeds the body with the right amount of oxygen to cleanse the mind and body of toxins, of course there are other more important reasons to breath, as stated earlier, breathing is vital for keeping the body functioning correctly, and for carrying toxins away.

Oxygen is the provider of the vital nutrients, without it the efficient functioning of the brain and body would not work, without it we will die within minutes.

Blood in our bodies becomes purified when we practise our breathing, taking in extra oxygen speeds up the process which gives us more energy.

Below are a few facts about the effects of oxygen in our bodies.

• Breathing is the major requirement for energy.

• Breathing purifies the blood system and by doing so the whole body works effectively.

• The solar plexus is recharged with oxygen, by this I mean it recharges the batteries so to speak.

• Aging of the skin is slowed down.

How to breath properly.

As human beings it is a natural process for the body to take in oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide, but the majority of the time we are not aware of it. By not noticing we can easily slip into bad habits, such as poor body posture, poor diet or living with stress, all these factors can restrict the breathing, which is often the cause of ill health.

It's easy for me to sit here, preaching about how to breath properly, we have always breathed as we do, it's habitual and old habits are hard to break. But it can be altered with practise.

Yoga practises breathing as one of its 5 key principles, it helps to be seated in the correct posture also. Try this little exercise for your self,

If you have a clock in the same room as you, try to concentrate on the sound and rhythm, really listen to the pattern of the ticking. If you lose concentration, don't worry just keep trying and pay attention to the sound. Feel it ticking in your mind. The secret is to keep trying.
If you find concentrating on the ticking easy, then your breathing will have become deeper or longer, but if you could not concentrate, the breathing will become faster or shallow, if this happens keep trying, the more you practice the easier it becomes.

Try to breath through the nose, this is the first and correct rule for breathing. From an early age a lot of people breath through the mouth which could effect the development of the thyroid Gland development. The nose has a number of defence mechanisms, which purifies the air which we breath in, the mouth does not, breathing through the mouth allows for too much cold air, and impurities to enter the body.

The nose has for its first line of defence, hairs which trap dust particles or small insects, further in the nose, there is a mucus lined passage where the air is warmed and any fine dust is trapped here. The inner nose have glands fighting off the remainder of smaller particles, which slipped
through the other defences, this is where the glands which detect smell (olfactory organ), which warn us of poisonous gasses.

You can find more about how to breath correctly for a healthier mind and body in the book "The Sivananda Yoga Training Manual". A comprehensive booklet outlining the five principles of yoga.

The 5 principle keys can be found in the Yoga book found on the website which this link, you may want to take a look at the corporate yoga page. Please take a look at the Yoga CD page.

Corporate Yoga

Corporate Yoga.

Are you, your collegues, management, team leaders all suffering from work related stress?
When you sit at your desk, or in your office looking out at the rest of the team do you see energetic, positive people?

Are the staff happy, motivated, do they give 100% in their jobs?
Do you or the staff suffer from any of the following?

• Suffering from work related stress?
• Back pains, neck pains or headaches?
• Feeling lethargic or sluggish?
• overwhelmed by deadlines?
• Taking too many days off work sick?
• unable to keep your mind on the job because of a wandering mind?
• Get easily frustrated with your work, your colleagues, even your customers?

I bet you have answered yes to the majority of those questions. If you did, there is a solution, and the answer is Corporate yoga

What is Corporate yoga?

Put simply, it is yoga brought to you in your work place where everyone can join in, it promotes to well being, personal development and increased self esteem. You dont have to be super flexible to start training just willing to participate and allow the magic of Yoga to work through you.

Yoga can strengthen the immune system and the vital organs of the body, which means you will be able to fight off illness's that normaly keep you from your work.

Yoga balances the right and left sides of the brain, thus ensuring quicker problem solving, bigger, better ideas also an enthusiastic approach to your work.

Yoga teaches you how to breath properly, shows you how to use the full capasity of your lungs, taking in more oxygen which leads to better concentration eliminating depression low self esteem which increases levels of endorphins in the blood.

Regular Yoga training teaches you how to hold your posture properly reducing back and neck pains.

There are 5 principles to yoga, they are:

• Relaxation.
• exercise
• breathing
• Diet
  
• Positive thinking and meditation.
  

The 5 principles can all be found in "The sivananda yoga training manual" along with other written works. The yoga book is a handy way to learn about yoga. Please take a look at our Yoga CD page

I hope the imformation I have provided is of some use to you.

more later
JudeR