Meditation guided practices might seem to go hand in hand with a yoga routine, but you may not be getting the greatest benefit out of this combination as you think. When actively incorporating techniques from your meditation method into your yoga, you are deepening both disciplines and providing that much stronger of an experience. While your yoga poses might inhibit a more intensive meditation format, some more basic meditation techniques will provide a rich new texture to your yoga regimen.
Whatever meditation style you practice, it is best to think of what elements will transfer to your yoga work the easiest. If you use beads to recite mantras, you may have to put them aside while performing your yoga poses. However, you can still recite the mantras in your head. If you do yoga at home, you can say them aloud, as it will not disturb a roomful of yoga practitioners. During your regular meditation, feel free to return to your beads.
Visualization techniques can be very helpful during yoga. You can visualize yourself just as you do during meditation, if you see fit, but you can also tailor your visualizations to suit your yoga goals. For example, if you meditate to reduce stress and you practice yoga for weight loss, you may want to consider switching up your visualizations accordingly. If your yoga aspirations and meditation goals align with one another, feel free to keep the same visualization for both guided meditation yoga and standard meditation.
Breathing exercises are important to both practices, but you might associate different breathing exercises with meditation than you do with yoga. If that is the case, try doing exercises where you might think they do not belong. For example, try bringing a calming meditation breathing exercise to your next invigorating yoga session or vice versa. Concentrate on your breath and how the air moves through your body (the expansion of your lungs, etc.).
Finally, if you choose to combine the two practices, be sure to have a space set aside in your home that is not only comfortable for meditating, but large enough to accommodate your yoga poses, as well as private enough so that you remain undisturbed. You may find that after keeping the two disciplines apart, you want to keep combining them, which is absolutely fine. If all goes well, you will likely feel that your yoga practice is more fulfilling, and that you feel a greater sense of power from meditation guided.
