Yoga and meditation are not so trending these days, but both of them have been there since centuries, with Hatha yoga practices dating back as far as the 11th century in the Far East. During the 1980s, the western world caught onto the benefits of Yoga and Meditation; both of them became popular. There have been many studies that have been devoted to highlighting the benefits of these practices.  Yoga is not only a practice of physical exercise but also a core. It has both spiritual and meditative ground.

Yoga and meditation act together, both are different practices both are grounded to spirituality and benefits the mind and the body. Yoga helps you to improve flexibility, balance, endurance and physical strength. While meditation it helps to keep the mind sharp and the clear. It relieves one from stress and improves overall well-being.

What is Meditation?

Meditation is a practice where an individual uses a technique – such as mindfulness or focusing their mind on a particular object, thought or activity – to train attention and awareness, and achieve a mentally clear and emotionally calm and stable state.

–As per Wikipedia

Meditation refers to a type of mental exercise and reflection that people do about something in particular, whether spiritual or physical. It is an activity that can be done by anyone.

Meditation refers to a group of techniques known to enhance specific skills such as concentration, conscious state regulation, and self-awareness. The disciples of Buddhism and Yoga traditionally followed meditation techniques and were used to upgrade personal development and spiritual growth. Thus, meditation has been more intimately associated with the system of religious and philosophical beliefs in India and East Asia.

Benefits of Meditation:

• It will improve your physical and mental health.

• It strengthens the immune system, reduces pain, improves the circulatory, digestive and muscular systems and helps in fighting depression.

• Reduce stress, anxiety and improve mental well-being, and help you improve the day from a state of alert.

• Fight insomnia, falling asleep will be much easier, enjoy more rest and feeling full of energy when you wake up.

• Improves concentration and memory, improves your ability to focus, also producing an improvement in your memory.

• Indicate to maintain a more positive attitude towards life, accepting and facing the challenges of day to day, even the most difficult, as part of the continuous process of personal growth, decreasing the negativity.

Meditation will make you happier, and you will feel more fulfilled in life

What is Yoga?

Yoga is a group of physical, mental, and spiritual practices or disciplines which originated in ancient India. Yoga is one of the six orthodox schools of Hindu philosophical traditions.

–As per Wikipedia

Yoga is a word that comes from the Sanskrit language and means the union: The union of body, heart, and spirit.

The roots of yoga are found in India and go back several thousand years. It is a series of ancient exercises that are practiced a lot today. The goal of it is to achieve a higher level of concentration through meditation. The connection of the mind with the inner self and realizing that desired inner peace.

Yoga means “union.” A union of the body, mind, and spirit of the human being but we also consider yoga the set of disciplines and physical techniques that allow us to discover the nature of the human being.

Benefits of Yoga:

• Inner Peace: The most immediate results of the practice of Yoga have to do with inner peace. Yoga gives us this experience and develops the right attitude.
• Cardiovascular Improvement: The practice of Yoga contributes to improving the heart and lung. The rhythm of breathing activity that the body needs for the functioning of a healthy heart is nourished

• Blood and Oxygen Circulation: Yoga postures and movement, helps improve circulation efficiently and helps the oxygenation of the body’s cells.

• Flexibility Improvement: Yoga improves flexibility and mobility and increases the range of motion. With practicing Yoga daily, the muscles stretch more efficiently and the joints increase their elasticity.

• Better Breathing: This facilitates the recovery of the most critical function for the human being, complete natural breathing.

• Weight loss: The practice of Surya “Namaskar” and “Kapalbhati” are two of the different practice yoga offers for weight loss.

How do they differ?

Meditation is an element of yoga which is concerned with mental relaxation and awareness of thoughts as well as breathing. It brings conscious of breathing, automatically organizes the thinking process and thus calms down mind completely.

Meditation is a nonphysical activity as compared with yoga. Done by employing relaxation techniques, controlled breathing, and concentrated relaxation techniques. Meditation constitutes “stilling” the mind. Yoga is a phsyco-physical regulation which focuses on the physical postures also known as asanas.

Yoga is all about the different postures, there are many postures you can find in yoga, but in meditation, they only use the energy that flows and focuses on it to bring that peace in our body and mind. Yoga needs many physical activities, and you need a trained yoga trainer to perform so that you don’t end up injuring yourself and in meditation, as you have to do is sit in one place feel the flow of energy, you don’t need a trained advisor.

In the end, Yoga is Union of All and therefore you need to meditate after yoga to stable down the vibrations.

Written by – Harsh Naik and Aditya Dhir