8 Do’s and don’ts of meditation for beginners

While meditation can improve your overall well being considerably, it can take some time for you to master this art, especially if you're a beginner.  Follow these simple do’s and don’ts, even if you’re a novice, you can be well on your way to finding inner peace, happiness, focus and the holistic health benefits that come with the daily practice of this art (and science).

The Don’ts of Meditation

1. Don’t do it with too many expectations
It can do more harm than good if you go into meditation with a baggage of expectations. You need to go into it with an open mind, while letting go of all your hopes, goals and expectations. Most importantly, to experience inner peace and stillness, you have to persevere, even if the results do not match your expectations. 

2. Don’t worry about interruptions
Meditation is all about letting go and learning to go with the flow. So, don’t get flustered if you experience interruptions and have to get back to your meditative mindset several times. 

3. Don’t look upon meditation as a quick-fix for your problems
Considered to be an effective treatment for stress and worries, meditation should not be taken up with the thinking that your problems would be resolved in no time. The effects of meditation may not show up for months to come. Patience is the key when it comes to meditation. 

The Do’s of Meditation

4. Do meditate in a quiet spot
Whether you’re doing it alone, at home or in a group, it is always good to meditate in a place where you will not be distracted by your surroundings. Your meditation can break even at the slightest noise, so pick the quietest spot possible. 


5. Do meditate in a group
For a beginner, meditating alone can be difficult and discouraging. You require a great deal of mental effort and determination to just sit still and not do anything. So, it’s good to go at it with the help of others who have been practicing it for sometime as their struggles and experiences may teach you a lot.

6. Do take the help of technology to improve your meditation
Apart from books, even technological tools like podcasts and apps can aid in improving your meditation knowledge and skills. While podcasts on meditation can be downloaded and viewed anytime, anywhere; apps can be used to time your meditation or even to divert any calls or messages that you may receive while you’re meditating, thus, preventing any form of distraction.

7. Do experiment and vary your practice        
In order to stave off boredom that might arise from pursuing just one kind of meditation style, you could vary your practice with a myriad of meditation styles, ranging from a body targeted meditation to a breath focused one.

8. Always opt for the sitting position
It’s extremely important to get your body to differentiate between sleep and meditation. The body of a beginner can easily mistake meditation for sleep. For this reason, it is best to be always in a seated position when meditating. You could use blankets or pillows to increase your comfort level. 

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8 Do’s and Don’ts of Meditation for Beginners

A number of health problems are rooted in mental instability. Frequent bouts of anger and frustration can lead to stress and related problems. One of the most efficient ways of dealing with this instability and stress is meditation.
Vipasana is an ancient meditative technique that promises to allow a person to see the true nature of things. In Buddhist tradition, it literally translates to insight to the true reality of nature namely impermanence, suffering and the realization of non self. It focuses on self observation and the connection between mind and body and aims to eradicate mental impurities.
Vipasana meditation can be broken down into four stages.
Discovering Vitakka and Vicara: The first stage of Vipasana explores the connection between body and mind. This is done by concentrating on inhaling and exhaling and the feeling of air passing over the skin in front of the nose. Vitakka and vicara refer to the concentration and thought required to feel the connection between mind and body.
Disappearance of Vitakka and Vicara: In the second stage, the connection between mind and body is felt effortlessly. Thus, in this stage both vitakka and vicara fade away. This is known as anapana meditation and helps develop control over the mind.
Happiness: When a person reaches the third stage of vipasana, he stops focusing on emotions like pity, sadness, exuberance and only feels happiness. This frees the mind of negativity and hence purifies it.
Equanimity: The fourth and final stage is characterized by mindfulness and leads to clarity. At this stage, a person feels the desire for freedom and understands nature to be ever changing.
Vipasana is taught at a ten day residential program. Here, participants must adhere to a code of discipline that includes absolute silence and abstaining from any form of communication, sexual activity and substance abuse. Participants are taught the basics of the meditation technique and how to practice it but to benefit fully from it, regular meditation is necessary. Advanced vipasana students may attend 20, 30, 45 and 60 day courses to practice vipasana. An introduction to vipasana is also given to children in the form of short 3 day courses.
Ultimately, vipasana enables the practitioner to experience peace and harmony within oneself and with the rest of the world. It frees the mind from craving and hence also helps people abstain from social evils like stealing and killing. Thus, vipasana has the capacity to change minds and character and helps practitioners lead fulfilling, healthy lives. 

Vipasana - See The True Nature Of Things

Have you been stressed out lately and feel like you have lost your mental peace? You should consider trying yoga for reviving your peace of mind. Yoga poses integrate a combination of physical health and spiritual health, which allow you to cope with the various tensions you experience in everyday life. You get a calm and relaxed state of mind and your sense of both internal and external well-being also improves. Here are the best yoga poses, which help you bring mental peace.

Anjaneyasana - high lunge: For performing this yoga pose, you should stand up straight and bend forward on one of your knees, keeping your other leg stretched behind. Your arms should be held above your head, and you must inhale and exhale all the time. This pose gives you positive energy, which enhances mental power and strength.
Anjaneyasana - low lunge: This yoga pose involves the bending of one knee in a low lunged position, keeping the forward knee flexed at a 90 degree angle. Your arms should be stretched. This yoga asana is good for increasing your mental focus, and helps in releasing all sorts of tensions. It is very effective for total mental peace.
Garundasana - eagle pose: This is a high level yoga pose that helps in improving your concentration and balance. All negative mental energy you possess get dispelled. It involves a chair pose, with one of your left arm wrapped around another. Your arms should stay entwined. This asana enables you to develop mental and physical harmony, which results in inner peace.
Natarajasana - dancer s pose: This is another effective yoga posture, which helps in boosting your concentration power. It involves standing on one leg while you bend forward having one arm stretched in front, and another grabbing your foot of the leg, which is raised.
Virabhadrasana - warrior pose: This yoga pose aims at combating your inner conflicts in order to attain a relaxed mental state. You need to stand on one leg, bend forward, raise your other leg, and clasp your hands behind your back. This practice is effective in eliminating negative emotions, which upset your mental peace.
Urdhva prasarita eka padasana - standing split pose: This yoga asana involves standing with one of your legs resting on the ground, while the other one is extended upwards. Blood rushes to your head, which improves your mental functions. You also experience a serene state of mind, which is important for a sound mind.
Apart from these, the Adho Mukha Vrksasana or the Handstand is also effective for attaining mental peace. Here, you need to propel your body upwards, supporting your entire body weight on your hands.

How Yoga Can Bring You Mental Peace?

It is often said that Ayurveda is a science and Yoga is an implementation of that science. In treatment, both these connected branches speak for the consistent practice of breathing techniques and medication along with indulging in body purification processes, use of medicinal herbs, well regulated dieting as well as chanting of mantras for uplifting the mind and body. In Yoga, the physical purification processes are known as 'Satkriyas' whereas the same in Ayurveda is called as 'Panchakarma'.

Understanding Yoga and Ayurveda
Yoga and Ayurveda are two interrelated branches of Vedic knowledge that encircles the whole universe.

1. The formation of Ayurveda: Ayurveda is one of the four secondary Vedic teachings called the Upavedas that constitute Gandharva Veda, Dhanur Veda and Sthapatya Veda as well. Each of these Ayurvedas is directed towards specific walks and aims at the Vedic quest for liberation. Ayurveda is by far the most important of all four as it addresses all the disciplines of healing as well as holistic well-being of the mind and body.

2. The birth of Yoga: Ever since its formation through the Yoga, it has been widely accepted as one of the six branches of Vedic preaching. It advocates the authority of the Vedas and aims at systematizing the true meaning of the Vedic preaching.

In this classical Vedic system, Ayurveda is specifically developed for healing purposes and there is no other branch of the Vedic system that can offer such comprehensive healing benefits.

Integral relationship between Yoga and Ayurveda
The term Yoga means combining, harmonizing and above all uniting. Thus a Yogic approach is an inherently integrative approach that harmonizes the body, mind and senses, and is not involved in implementation of sideline techniques but incorporates a synthesis of all aspects of the healing processes. This is the reason why Yoga originally has an eight-fold path directed towards bettering the quality of lives. Otherwise, it is caught in similar variants of physical reductionism that are often addressed in modern medicinal therapies.

Asana is referred to as the internal medicine of Yoga as it brings the vital energy directly into the body. It is aimed at alleviating the nervous, respiratory and circulatory systems of the human body. It is crucial to integrate Ayurveda and Yoga for bringing out the total spiritual and healing potential of the human body as well as each of these vast branches of Vedic knowledge.

The Connection of Yoga and Ayurveda

International Yoga Day is observed on 21st June every year to spread awareness about the importance and effects of yoga on the health of the people. The International Yoga Day aims to raise awareness worldwide of the many benefits of practicing yoga. The United Nations General Assembly on December 11, 2014, announced that June 21 will be seen as International Yoga Day or World Yoga Day. Since 2015, International Yoga Day is been celebrated worldwide. 
Do you know about the various benefits of yoga for your body and health? Yoga is the answer for a lot of aspects which everyone desires, such as a peaceful mind, a strong and flexible body and a healthy, glowing skin. It is commonly perceived that yoga aims at weight loss, but there are numerous benefits, which you can get by practising yoga regularly. Here are the various ways in which yoga is ideal for your everyday life. It covers lots of aspects associated with your health and body functioning.

Yoga for overall fitness
You need to be physically fit, as well as perfectly balanced emotionally and mentally. This ensures that you are healthy in the true sense. Health is like a dynamic expression of life-based on how happy, loving and enthusiastic you are in life. The various postures of yoga help in maintaining overall fitness, and balance both your mind and body in an ideal way.

It helps in improving health.
It gives you an enhanced strength of mind.
Your physical power and stamina get boosted.
Your body is perfectly detoxified.
Yoga for weight loss
Yoga is excellent for weight loss purposes. The Kapalbhati Pranayama and the Sun Salutations are effective yoga practices, which help you to lose excess weight. With regular yoga practice for a long time, you become extra sensitive to the types of food your body demands. This is effective for keeping a check on your weight.

Yoga for stress relief
Some minutes of yoga every day is a good way of eliminating the stress that you experience in daily life. It refers to both physical and mental stress. Certain yoga postures, meditation, and Pranayama are ideal practices for getting rid of stress.

Yoga and inner peace
In today s hectic world and the hustle-bustle of daily life, every person desires some peace. This peace can be found within your own self and you do not always need to escape to the mountain to breathe freely. Practising yoga regularly will give you immense inner peace, which is equivalent to a mini holiday to some nice, serene place. Yoga is very essential for calming your disturbed and troubled mind.
Moreover, yoga poses massage your organs and help in strengthening your muscles. The various breathing exercises and meditation forms associated with yoga are great for releasing unwanted, undesirable stress from your system. This, in turn, improves your immune system and prevents you from getting affected by frequent diseases and health conditions.

World Health Day - Making Life Healthier With Yoga!

Did you know that yoga poses help you in achieving greater flexibility rather than develop it? If you are suffering from stiff hamstrings, painful lower back and locked-up hips and tried many yoga poses without any help, then you may not have tried the right poses. When the body is stiff, it feels like you are trapped within your own body. Flexibility exercises can help in alleviating joint stiffness that may have developed due to a wide array of reasons. Here are the main asanas that are great for joint flexibility.

1. Big toe pose or Padangusthasana: This yogic pose can calm the nervous system and relieve stress and anxiety and stimulate your kidney and liver to optimize their functions. With regular practice, your calf muscles and hamstrings would stretch and your thighs would become stronger. If you are suffering from indigestion and insomnia, then big toe pose is a must try and it also helps in alleviating the symptoms of menopause.

2. Bound angle pose or Baddha Konasana: This pose offers a host of benefits that include stimulating your abdominal organs, prostate glands, ovaries, kidneys and bladder. It also stimulates blood and oxygen circulation throughout the body and improves the heart condition. It is a therapeutic treatment for high blood pressure, anxiety, mild depression, fatigue flat feet, asthma and infertility. With consistent practice, you will be able to stretch your knees, groin and inner thigh.

3. Child's pose or Balasana: This resting pose calms the mind and improves digestion to a great extent. It helps in elongation of the lower back by opening up and stretching this part of the body where all the weight is dumped while you sit and work all day long. This pose is perfect for opening up the hip and reducing hip pains and improving their flexibility.

4. Cow face pose or Gomukhasana: When performed regularly, this pose helps in deep stretching the hips, thighs, ankles, armpit, shoulders, triceps, chest and deltoid. If you had been suffering from a chronic knee pain, this pose can help relieving it. It also aids in strengthening the spine and abdominals, and its folded variations are a great way of decompressing lower spine and clearing the hip joint.

Increased flexibility is one of the topmost benefits of yoga that would surely equip you with the freedom of movement and relaxation. However, it is always important to consult an expert before you try these poses, as they can evaluate your medical history and select the ideal yogic postures that would work best for you.

Improving Joint Flexibility Through Yoga

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