Meditation and yoga: The benefits of moving meditation
Meditation can be performed in many different forms. One form of meditation is yoga. Yoga meditation again comes in many different forms. One form is very similar to "normal" meditation, while another yoga form is more like a workout.
In this article, I discuss meditation and yoga and what benefits yoga meditation has for the quality of your life.
Many people are familiar with yoga because of its effects on the body’s flexibility. Yoga makes you more flexible and helps you maintain your balance better, but that’s actually only true for the types of yoga where the poses are the focus. For meditation and yoga, it’s generally not necessary to know how to do a headstand. In many cases, even when practicing meditation and yoga, the cross-legged position provides more than enough flexibility to reap the benefits of meditation.
In this article, I will discuss Dru yoga, Kriya yoga, Kundalini yoga and the well-known Hatha yoga. Ultimately, meditation is important in all yoga forms, but it is performed in different ways.
Therefore, for each form, I will explain the way meditation is done and the benefits that particular form of yoga has for your mental and physical health.
There are also other forms of yoga, but then it becomes a very long story.
Dru yoga and meditation
Dru yoga is a form of yoga that involves combining different poses, asanas, that you repeat one after another. These are Energy Block Releases (EBR). The idea is to do this in a fluid movement.
To create that fluid movement, it is important to combine breathing with movement. For example, you often see in Dru yoga that you move from one pose to another while exhaling and doing a big swing with your arms or even your entire upper body.
In addition to these EBRs, meditation—including breath-based meditation—and hand movements are important to this form of yoga. You usually begin with a gentle exercise, followed by the EBR, and then there is a moment of relaxation and meditation.
Research shows that Dru yoga helps reduce stress at work ( 1). A study on reducing work-related stress among university staff found that 1 hour of Dru yoga per week, during the lunch break, led to less stress and a greater sense of clarity, calm, energy, and self-confidence.
Dru yoga also helps reduce stress in work settings other than a university. This was evident in, among other things, feeling less hostile at work, less sense of unease and a higher sense of calm, self-confidence and collegiality.
Another nice touch is that it can reduce lower back pain ( 2).
Kriya yoga and meditation
Kriya yoga is a form of yoga where meditation is most important rather than the poses. In this form of yoga, you sit in cross-legged chairs and hold your hands crossed with palms up or folded together in your lap. You can do this on your bed, couch or on a yoga cushion.
Breathing plays an important role in this form of meditation because you experiment with it. There are four breathing methods in Kriya yoga.
- Victory Breathing
This breathing involves becoming aware that the air goes through your throat to your lungs. You put your hand on your throat and breathe very slowly through your nose. For example, at 4 breaths per minute, but make sure you breathe enough, so 6 or 10 times is also good. By breathing very slowly and deeply, you train the muscles that cause air to enter your lungs. You become very calm and very alert. For example, you feel very clearly how your lungs fill up and how, when breathing slowly, you use your chest and abdomen to breathe in as much air as possible. The important thing is that you hold it for a moment and then exhale slowly.
You don't have to spend minutes performing this exercise for the effect. I already feel it in the first minute, then you can already move on to the next one.
- Roaring Breath
In roaring breathing, you take 30 breaths per minute, which is every 2 seconds, and do so in a powerful way. This causes you to become aroused, or excited, after which you calm down.
Again, you don't have to do this for more than a minute. It is helpful to have a stopwatch with this because you quickly tend to go too fast and then you can hyperventilate.
- Mantra Meditation
You can perform the "uncle" sound of the mantra meditation three times making the uncle as long as possible.
The fourth form is for advanced people who have been doing this for some time and you should practice it with a Kriya yoga instructor, but you can also get a lot done with these first three breathing techniques. Between exercises, do nothing for a while so that your breathing returns to its natural course before moving on to the next technique.
Research shows that Kriya yoga can significantly reduce symptoms of depression. In addition, it has a positive effect on heart-related symptoms that can arise from depression, anxiety, and panic disorders. It also alleviates other symptoms associated with anxiety, depression, and panic.
This is because normally your emotion determines your breathing. By consciously changing your breathing, you can change the emotion you are having at that moment. So if you are anxious you can influence the emotion by taking deep breaths.
Even in people convicted of violent crimes, it helps reduce overreacting to provocations and helps them sleep better.
It provides a certain stimulus that also improves your thinking ability and can even reduce symptoms of Alzheimer's. This may be because the exercises stimulate the vagus nerve. This is a nerve that affects the brain and motor skills, such as breathing. It is a nerve that comes directly from the brain and not from the spinal cord, like most nerves in the body. The nerve is also very important for your breathing.
Kundalini yoga: change in brain waves
Kundalini yoga, like Kriya yoga, has a foundation in changing breathing during meditation. There are also asanas performed and mantras used during meditation.
The breathing techniques of Kundalini yoga affect blood pressure, heart rate and brain waves. Scientists do not yet know exactly what effect it has on the brain, but they do know that it stimulates certain brain waves. For example, the aplha EEG brain wave is higher during meditation than before or after. This wave is affected by wake and sleep rhythms and REM sleep. Researchers would like to know more about the effect of breathing exercises on these brain waves ( 3).
Because of this effect, Kundalini yoga is also used to support the treatment of insomnia. Case studies also show that it can help well against compulsive behavior disorders (OCD) and, according to many people who practice this form of yoga, it also works against anxiety, depression and other disorders affected by the nerves ( 4).
Hatha yoga: meditation for better thought processes
Hatha yoga is the best-known form of yoga. If you go to the gym for yoga group classes, chances are you are taking this form of yoga. This is because this form of yoga is based on asanas (poses) and breathing. This gives you a kind of physical way of meditation. By focusing on breathing and movement, you can strengthen the connection between body and mind.
As with Dru yoga, breathing is also important when changing asana and while holding the pose. The poses are usually held for between 30 and 60 seconds. This time is needed to give the stretch the effect needed to achieve greater flexibility.
For example, the corpse pose and its execution resemble the mindfulness body scan, which also strengthens the connection between the mind and body.
Hatha yoga has multiple health benefits. For example, it helps increase flexibility, lower blood pressure (at the time of yoga itself), lower heart rate and lower breathing. It also improves your fitness ( 5).
In terms of thoughts and thinking speed, Hatha yoga also has its benefits. Research in which 62 year-olds participated shows that Hatha yoga works better than stretching alone for solving a task quickly, increasing working memory and switching quickly between topics you need to focus on ( 6).
Therefore, it is also thought that Hatha yoga can be used to counteract decreased thinking ability during aging.
Would you like to learn more about physical and mental techniques to improve your quality of life? Then come to a seminar or check out the courses offered by the Hypnosis Institute of the Netherlands.
Sources:
http://www.jstor.org/stable/40967889?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
http://occmed.oxfordjournals.org/content/62/8/606.short
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3573542/
http://www.jad-journal.com/article/S0165-0327(99)00079-8/abstract
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1011343307783
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10484-004-0387-0
http://btci.edina.clockss.org/cgi/content/abstract/3/3/369
http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/10755530260511810
http://biomedgerontology.oxfordjournals.org/content/69/9/1109.short