How To increase concentration and focus?
Pratyahara is the 5th step of Ashtanga Yoga and the one I find the most difficult.
Pratyahara involves withdrawing the senses from the outer world and gaining mastery over external influences. Easier said than done. All of us have heard of the ‘monkey’ mind. Trying to meditate is an exercise in humility. It makes us realize how difficult it is for us to control our mind. The mind is like an untrained wild animal and has a mind of its own. It doesn’t exactly like us exerting control over it and would rather go its own way. Hence, the reins need to be tightened little by little.
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Different Types of Pranayama Breathing Techniques
There are a variety of breathing techniques to achieve certain goals. But in general, there are two groups of breathing techniques depending on whether you want to flush your body with more energy or slow it down.
FAQs (and not so FAQs) About Breathing
Let us have a look at the mechanics of breathing and how it can help us improve our breathing.
What do you mean we have to learn breathing? Doesn’t it happen on its own? Yes. It does. But even then we can learn to improve breathing. Breathing muscles are controlled by both involuntary and voluntary mechanisms. The body automatically breathes even if we don’t deliberately think about it. But if we control our breathing (make it slower / faster / deeper) we can do so. Yogic cleansing Techniques
This should have been a post on breathing techniques.
But allow me a little very important detour before we get there. I have a story to share. I always suffered from cough and cold. It didn’t matter whether it was summer, or winter, or rains. In summer, I would sweat and my nasal passage would choke up. In rains, I would get wet and catch cold. In winter, the air would be cold and dry, and my dust allergy would be triggered. How do you know if you are breathing correctly?
If you are reading this, you must be breathing.
But.. are you breathing right? Really? There is a right way? Why don’t we do a check right away? Meditation and Sleep
Let’s rewind a bit here before we go on further.
By now, we know we can’t expect good meditation unless we can sit immobile for an appreciable length of time. The minimum target time to sit ‘like a stone’ seems to be around 1 hour. I couldn’t find a lower figure anywhere. And an optimistic time estimate to get to this goal is 1 year. The progress varies from person to person and patient and persistent effort is the key. Asana best suited for meditation
When you hear Asana (the third step of Ashtanga Yoga), what comes to mind?
If you have any media exposure, probably you think something of this sort. When Meditation Does not Work
Let us have a look into each of the eight steps and how to apply them in our practice.
Yama and Niyama are the two foundational disciplines, meant to be followed in day-to-day life to achieve stillness of body and mind, to conserve energy and channelize it to achieve spiritual purposes. Without those, meditation will yield only limited results and not cause any fundamental shift in the nature of the individual. What is Yoga? YoGA Vs Meditation?
Question : Which of these is / are Yoga? What steps of Yoga can you identify in each of the pictures?
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