Often when we hear the word “yoga,” we also hear the word “meditation” or vice versa. Yoga and meditation are closely connected practices but both offer benefits through different approaches. Yoga is the union of mind, body, and energy achieved through physical exercise, breath control, and meditative postures. On the other hand, meditation is a skill that can be achieved through concentration and focus but also can put your body into a meditative state through other approaches, for example, binaural beats and breathwork. It’s when both practices come together that you can strengthen the connection between the mind and body, bringing about overall fitness and improved well-being. Let’s explore the connections between the two:

Yoga as a Way of Life

It can easily be considered an exercise routine, but because of the physical postures (asanas), breathing techniques (pranayama), ethical principles (yamas and niyamas), and the optional addition of meditation, yoga can be a holistic approach to life.

Yoga, as we know it, is not actually the yoga practice over 5,000 years ago. In fact, yoga was more focused on breathwork to put the body and mind into certain states. However, modern yoga is the opportunity to have a profound exploration of our inner selves. The 8 Limbs of Yoga provide a comprehensive guide for ethical and spiritual living, which also forms the practice of meditation.

Meditation and Its Integral Nature to Yoga

While the modern perception of yoga involves physical postures to bring about benefits to mind and body, meditation is the key to calming the mind and achieving a state of profound stillness. The modern term is considered mindfulness, and meditation becomes such an essential component of yoga, but also being able to live in a modern world. Mindfulness is essentially meditation, but in another guise.

The Importance of Mental Relaxation Achieved Through Meditation

Mental relaxation is key to modern living because of a multitude of benefits, including stress reduction. Meditation has been proven to reduce stress, anxiety, and symptoms of depression, resulting in improved mental well-being and the ability to regulate one’s emotions.

Improved Mood

Research indicates that meditation can enhance mood, promote healthy sleep patterns, and boost cognitive skills while also being linked to a more positive outlook on life and an improved self-image.

Changes in the Brain

Studies have demonstrated that meditation can result in positive brain changes, such as improved working memory, regulating emotions, and increased information processing speeds, which can be invaluable in our mile-a-minute culture.

Physical Health Benefits

Improved immune system function, decreased inflammation, and reduced blood pressure are all major advantages everybody can benefit from. The ability to relax is something we can get further and further away from, and meditation provides a sanctuary for the mind. People in constant states of mental flux and stress may not recognize the heightened state they are in.

Through meditation, mindfulness, and focused breathwork, individuals can attain a sense of mental calmness. Partly, this is because meditation involves conducting an acute awareness of the present moment without judgment, which switches off the incessant chatter of the mind, so we don’t worry about the past or the future.

Nurturing the Mind-Body Connection with Mental Yoga

Mental yoga is a concept integral to the broader spectrum of yoga but emphasizes the mind-body connection to enhance mental health. It involves yoga with asanas, pranayamas, and dhyanas, all aimed at uniting mind, body, and spirit.

Mental yoga is a holistic approach that focuses on creating a balance between the mind, body, and spirit, resulting in improved mental well-being and overall quality of life.

Current Research on Yoga and Meditation

Various studies have shone a light on both yoga and meditation in ways it has never done before. The old way of thinking was that meditation and yoga were both practices exclusive to those with a hippie mindset.

With epidemics of mental health, depression, and anxiety increasing year on year, people are turning to yoga and meditation to provide greater benefits to their lives that cannot be achieved through a pill.

Yoga has provided a number of benefits that are supported by science:

• Studies suggest that yoga asana may be an effective alternative treatment for anxiety disorders. For example, a body scan guided meditation known as Yoga Nidra has become very popular and has been shown to reduce symptoms of anxiety.
• Yoga can be considered an effective alternative treatment for major depressive disorder (MDD), one of the most common mental health disorders.
• Yoga has been shown to improve how quickly people fall asleep but also how deeply they stay asleep.
• Yoga can help people experiencing burnout, with a recent study looking at hospice workers during the COVID-19 pandemic, coming to the conclusion that yoga-based meditation reduces the effects of burnout by improving interoceptive awareness, in other words, an understanding of one’s inner self.
• Meditation in advanced forms such as Jhana has been shown to impact brain activity, leading to insights into the brain’s response during deep meditation. Researchers demonstrated that meditation can modulate brain mechanisms, triggering neurotransmitters that have a modulating effect on psychological disorders such as anxiety, and as it does not suffer any side effects, it can function as an effective treatment and preventative medicine recommended to everyone.

Strands of Meditation and Yoga That Prove Beneficial by Themselves

Because both yoga and meditation contain a number of different factors, we can actually utilize specific strands for great health benefits:

Yoga Nidra

A subject we’ve already touched upon briefly, Yoga Nidra is a powerful meditation technique that induces a state of consciousness between waking and sleeping. A Yoga Nidra session involves lying comfortably in corpse pose (savasana) while being guided through various stages of relaxation, breath awareness, and self-exploration.

Yoga Nidra is known for promoting profound rest and relaxation, which reduces stress and improves overall health. The benefits of Yoga Nidra for those who are not accustomed to deep meditation are that they can still experience the benefits, and it is a highly accessible practice to achieve a state of deep peace and calm.

Different Types of Breathwork

Breathwork has entered the mainstream in recent years due to practitioners like Wim Hof, who has made it incredibly accessible. The Wim Hof method, also known as Tummo breathing, is only one strand of many different types of breathwork but is also, most notably, a stressor. The practice of tummo breathing is to generate heat and alertness, which goes against the very nature of relaxing your body and mind.

Other practices have found their way into the wider consciousness, including:

• Box breathing, which involves breathing in, holding, exhaling, and holding without air in the lungs for the same amount of time, which has been used as a tool by Navy SEALs to calm down.
• Heart coherence breathing, which involves slow controlled breathing to synchronize with the body’s heartbeat cycles, leading to reduced stress and increased relaxation and can induce a meditative state. Studies have shown the scientific benefits of improving heart rate variability (HRV) and inducing greater feelings of relaxation.
• Alternate nostril breathing, a yoga technique involving breathing through one nostril at a time, which is believed to balance the hemispheres of the brain and reduce stress.
• Other specific breathwork approaches, such as shamanic breathwork and holotropic breathwork, with the latter being used to put your mind and body into another state completely due to the hyperventilation that occurs with specific systematic breathing to promote emotional healing and spiritual well-being.

Using Yoga and Meditation as a Holistic Treatment for Modern Ailments

Research has shown that yoga and meditation are becoming increasingly recognized as holistic treatments for modern ailments. Yoga has been used as a complementary or alternative therapy for the medical treatment of mood disorders such as anxiety and depression. Both are considered incredibly versatile treatments that make them adaptable tools for individuals facing different challenges in life.

As they can help manage anxiety, depression, and stress, yoga and meditation play pivotal roles in holistic healing because of the harmony in bringing the body, emotions, and spirit together. This doesn’t just improve the health-related components but also increases self-awareness in the mind and body. This achieves a greater sense of confidence and a greater sense of self, providing a whole host of positives to engage the physical self.

While yoga and meditation were once considered great secrets of the world, only practiced by monks on top of mountains, the knowledge buried over thousands of years has slowly been coming to the wider public consciousness. For example, breathwork has had a light shone on it thanks to the book Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art by James Nestor. However, it is not an exclusive club, and yoga and meditation are things that we should all actively practice because both are there to align mind, body, and spirit.

Yoga and meditation should not just be considered spiritual practices but should be key pillars of our lifestyle in the modern world. Life as we know it can seem so stressful physically, mentally, and emotionally that we demand tools to help us weather these storms. Yoga, meditation, and the various strands can be invaluable to achieving a greater sense of self.