Try A Little Yoga To De-Stress And Keep Your Body And Mind Healthy

Yoga is an ancient practice that is slowly becoming accepted into our modern-day lives. It is a way that integrates body poses and breathing exercises, coupled with added meditation, to provide peace of mind and bring with it a sense of serenity with the world.

Meditation comes from intense concentration, where the individual focuses so thoroughly on a single object that he or she thinks of nothing besides his or her awareness of that object. Yoga takes things one step further by making meditation the highest point of the so-called Eight Limbs of Yoga.

These "eight limbs" define Yoga as a lifestyle, combining the following eight components into a coherent whole: your attitude towards the world around you, your attitude towards yourself, physical posturing, breathing exercises, withdrawing the senses, concentrating, contemplating, and enlightenment. Meditation is the means by which withdrawing the senses, concentration, contemplation, and enlightenment are achieved. The end result is a state of bliss, calmness, and peace of mind.

Meditation calms the mind and offers a number of health benefits. Regular meditation helps reduce overwhelming stress and anxiety. It also helps to lower blood pressure and in the long term, helps to decrease the risk of a heart attack. It can improve concentration, clarity of thought, and helps to develop one's creative side. It teaches the mind to focus and to tune out distractions and unnecessary worries.

Some researchers believe that meditation with yoga helps to increase the matter of the brain's cortex, helping to fine-tune the brain's cognitive, emotional, and sensory functions. Meditation may also slow the natural shrinkage of the frontal cortex due to aging.

Clearing the mind of extraneous thought is difficult, and of all thought even more so. Learning how to meditate will take some time and hard work. But here are some tips you can follow to start you off on the road to meditation.

• To start out, sit somewhere quiet, with your back and head straight. Practice these basic breathing exercises to help you relax.

• Take slow, deep breaths, drawing the air into your diaphragm, and not your chest. Expand your diaphragm as you breathe in. Close your eyes, breathe in through your nose and exhale through your mouth.

• Focus on your breath. Think of the cold air entering your body, and the warm air leaving through your mouth.

• Redirect all of your wandering thoughts and then just focus on the warm air as it is being exhaled. Everytime your mind starts to wander, bring it back to your breathing.

• 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 their breathing. Do this for a few minutes each day.

• Keep practising until your breathing becomes second nature and you start to gain control over your thoughts. Let the calmness and serenity flow into you.

Watch this inspirational video of one man's dramatic journey towards health and happiness through yoga.

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