Is your yoga practice a vehicle for mental health and self-actualization or are you content with just doing the physical practice?
Yoga was originally intended to be a practice to facilitate self-actualization, meaning to realize who you are and being comfortable being you. More recently in the western yoga world, there has been a separation between physical development and spiritual development. Social media has defined yoga as cool physical postures. Yet, do not be fooled into believing that you will be self-actualized by only practicing asana. Asana is only one of the eight limbs, and a healthy body means nothing without a healthy mind.
The definition of mental health according to the World Health Organization (“WHO”) is:
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There are many benefits from doing the physical practice, including improved overall physical fitness, stress relief, and a reduction in anxiety and depression. But how can your yoga practice be an instrument for self-actualization?
First of all, motivation is important. You have to want more. Without the desire to grow and learn, self-actualization will not occur. That motivation often comes from being in a place where nothing else is working. A time when you have tried everything else, and still you do not feel fulfilled.
The Trifecta Approach
There is a combination that will help you on your path towards fulfillment through self-actualization. I call it the trifecta approach. Here are the three key methods that work together to facilitate mental health and a life fully lived.
1. Yoga Practice: Find the right yoga teacher who supports your individual development beyond the physical asana.
2. Meditate: Develop a solid sitting practice. This more subtle practice will strengthen your ability to observe all mental activity.
3. Psychotherapy: Find a good therapist who will see you, hear you, support you, and guide you through your own transformation, and who will encourage you to keep at it.
This may seem like a complex combination, but here is a case that demonstrates the trifecta’s approach in action.
Alex’s Story1
Alex is a dedicated yoga practitioner. For over 10 years, she rolled out her mat
Yoga teacher training can help rescue life simply by presenting the way to live in good health. You realize physical exercise is good for you. Ideally, you are researching to integrate physical exercise into your day-to-day schedule. However, if your cardio workouts are not proportionate with a good dosage of weight training, though, you’re missing a fundamental component of complete wellness and physical fitness. Why become a yoga specialist?
Breaking my ankle twice last year, once in January and again in June, meant I was physically unable to practice yoga. This veiled me in a heavy cloak of doom, contorting around me like a famished boa constrictor.
We all know that Yoga's benefits are supposed to be huge. But, how many of you have tried it and not experienced the benefits for yourself? It can be more stressful than stress relieving sometimes, and it can have other negative effects on the body that are totally unwanted, like pain, which is why we wanted to do a Her Yoga Secrets review. The author says that she can help you finally experience all the benefits you want from Yoga with a few secrets. But does she really know something that you haven't already heard? Is this really something that will make yoga a life-changing exercise? Let's take a closer look.
Yoga provides excellent mind and body exercise that will help with strengthening muscles, keeping your body flexible - and relaxing your mind.
While doing yoga, the connection between the body and the breathing helps your brain to unwind and not to consider different things. Despite the fact that it is extremely successful for the psyche, it upgrades body quality, adjust and also adaptability.
Yoga can be experienced on many different levels for example: as a way to relax after a long stressful day; or a more physically demanding focus on strengthening and invigorating the body; as a more therapeutic practice for a particular physical difficulty or ailment; or as a path to spiritual enlightenment to reach a higher state of consciousness and a "union" with the Divine.
The article will show older adults being accessed after participating in yoga for 2 months regularly.
Yoga can be defined as a non-aerobic exercise and is defined as an “ ancient Indian combination of techniques, which include physical postures, voluntarily regulated breathing, meditation, as well as certain philosophical principles” (Taimini, 1986, cited in Telles, Gaur & Balkrishna, 2009). One of the most popular forms of yoga, which is used frequently in the literature, is Hatha Yoga. Hatha yoga involves the use of breathing techniques, postures and meditation to better physical and mental wellbeing (Li & Goldsmith, 2012). It is suggested that during low exertion exercise, such as yoga, individuals are required to think about what they are doing, develop awareness of their bodies and feel their movements (Lidor, 1999). A recent study
Yoga has been found to unify the body as a whole. During yoga the body and mind are in a state of balance. "Relaxation is when the body and mind are in a state of balance," said Jasmine Kaloudis, a yoga instructor in Philadelphia( Myhealthnewsdaily contributor 2010). What that means is that yoga works as releasing chronic muscle tension and restoring natural diaphragmatic breathing.
How Yoga can incorporate with treating depression is very important, depression has many ways of treatment, but because one of the key elements of depression is stress and Yoga tends to take the stress away, therefor, yoga can be a very effective treatment for depression. “Yoga is an ancient holistic health system that originated in India around 2000 BCE”. (Patricia Anne Kinser) Yoga is a well-accepted practice in the United States and its known for focusing on your mind and body to relax it, meditate it and practice breathing deeply to help your body relax very naturally, positive thinking is also another key element of Yoga.
A recent study done by Anderzén-Carlsson, A., Lundholm, U. P., Köhn, M., & Westerdahl, E. (2014) can help us better understand how Yoga helps to reduce stress. The participants described medical yoga as a way of alleviating suffering from their primary stress related symptoms as well as their other symptoms and lack of well-being. It provided the participants with a tool for dealing with their stress and current situation on a practical level. It also led to greater self-awareness and self-esteem, which in turn had an implicit impact on their life world. High self-esteem has been reported to help reduce stress in individuals; it gives them the confidence to
Yoga does not require much effort, yet it comes packed with a lot of benefits. This practice that combines breathing, poses and meditation has been found by many to be beneficial in improving overall health, as well as increasing productivity. You will find that many of the productive achievers in the world practice one form of yoga or the other.
Yogic practices is not exercise in the sense in which the word ’exercise’ is commonly understood. Both yogic practices and exercises have a common goal or objective, namely health protection and promotion. However , the effect of yogic practices is not limited to this only. It is expected that yogapractices should lead to a balanced personality.
The practice of relaxing the muscles of the body will bring rest to the body and to the mind. Yoga helps you to create symmetry throughout the body by training you to be strong, flexible and balanced. Yoga is an excellent way to keep your body and mind healthy. Yoga will improve your flexibility, overall health and put your mind and body in a more peaceful state. Yoga has always been a source of numerous health benefits, both for the body and the mind. Due to the strong mind-body connection of yoga, there are many emotional benefits to be gained from a consistent yoga practice.
Lisa Diamond, a nurse practitioner and coach for health and wellness, studied yoga as a way for her patients to incorporate self-management into their care. From a more biological approach, yoga is viewed as a method for stress management and anxiety relief. Yoga activates the autonomic nervous system and endocrine system, the autonomic system controls involuntary actions in the body while the endocrine releases hormones in response (Diamond, 2012). The autonomic system is split into the sympathetic and parasympathetic systems which are both greatly affected by yoga. The sympathetic system controls the “fight or flight” response and get the heart pumping under stress; parasympathetic works