Retreat - Yoga Nidra

Retreat, Renew, Restore, Rebalance,

In this class we use spiritual sound heart meditations, guided group meditation to focus your mind and light up your heart.

Retreat means: A place to which one retires a place of privacy or safety, a refuge.

Our focus is on healing body mind and spirit.

It is common practice to shut down the eyes, closing off this one sense pathway equates to less distractions. This technique calms the mind and at the same time heightens ones awareness and perception. The psyche becomes more receptive and able to retain information.

We heal the body by practising yoga nidra, opening up the meridians and letting healing energy circulate freely through the body unhindered by tension. We help the body rest and relax, calm the mind by giving it a positive activity, focus the mind on relaxing the body this calms the brain releasing pranic energy, the bodies healing energy.

It is vital that we take care of spirit in order for the physical mental and emotional bodies to be in harmony, to be happy.

Just as we need food for our physical bodies to be healthy and happy we also need spiritual food in order for us the spirit spark to be healthy and happy.

Yoga mantras and meditations are our soul food. As we mentioned earlier about a refuge, safe place, this is the souls refuge from the kaos of the world, a place of peace and happiness. We rest in the sound of ancient, sacred yoga mantras.

One combination of mantras commonly used is *Om *Hari Om. Mantras can be combined with the inhale and exhale as in pranayama breathing, or singing meditations also known as *kirtan.

*Om: (Aum) became the sacred word hum of the Tibetans, amin of the Muslems and amen of the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans and Christians

*Hari: One who takes away all miserable conditions.

*Kirtan: (Congregational singing of mantras) The sound of the soul singing.

If you would like to check it out, come experience it for yourself .. have a look at our yoga meditation timetable you are welcome to join in anytime. You will love it.

Namaste

Meditation alleviates stress

Do you feel stressed? Are you getting worn down by the daily grind? For most of us, our bodies think that we're running away from a tiger all day long. The constant challenges and pressures we face daily can really affect our health.
Did you know that as little as 10 minutes, each day spent in meditation can counteract that stress and bring you many powerful benefits. This is an excellent tool recommended by physicians to their patients. It's incredibly effective, and it’s free.
Meditation helps alleviate:
1. Stress
Meditation is a wonderful way to reduce stress. Not only does the practice of meditating give you some much-needed “down time” to rest physically, mentally, and emotionally, but it also directly impacts your entire nervous system by reducing your body’s production of stress-related chemicals such as cortisol. Meditation decreases oxygen consumption, heart rate, respiratory rate, and blood pressure, and increases the intensity of alpha, theta, and delta brain waves, which increase the relaxation response.
2. Pain
There is a significant body of research work demonstrating that meditation can reduce chronic pain. In a study published in the Journal of Behavioral Medicine, patients suffering from backache, chronic migraine and tension headaches were able to decrease their pain medication and some patients were even able stop their pain medication with a consistent meditation practice.
3. Anxiety
A 2009 study in the Journal of Clinical Psychology found that meditation decreased anxiety and increased hope in its participants. A separate study showed that cancer patients who practiced meditation for as little as seven weeks were significantly less depressed and anxious than their counterparts who did not meditate.
4. Cardiovascular disease
A study in the Archives of Internal Medicine followed patients with coronary heart disease who instituted a meditation practice for 16 weeks. Patients’ blood pressure and heart rate variability improved compared to a control group. In another study, researchers studying the effect of meditation on atherosclerosis reported that those who had practiced meditation for six to nine months had an 11% decrease in the risk of heart attack and up to a 15% decrease in the risk of stroke.
5. Insomnia
A study at the University of Minnesota showed patients with primary chronic insomnia who followed a three-month meditation program at home significantly improved their ability to fall asleep and stay asleep.

Check here for our weekly Yoga and Meditation Timetable

Yoga Benefits - Yoga Meditation 4221 Holistic Yoga

Benefits of Yoga

Yoga through meditation works remarkably to achieve harmony and helps the mind
work in synchronization with the body. How often do we find that we are unable to
perform our activities properly and in a satisfying manner because of the confusions
and conflicts in our mind weigh down heavily upon us?

Stress is the number one suspect affecting all parts of our physical, endocrinal and
emotional system. And with the help of yoga this things can be corrected.

At the physical level, yoga and its cleansing practices have proven to be extremely
effective for various disorders.

Listed below are just some of the benefits of yoga that you can get.

Benefits of Yoga 1: Yoga is known to increase flexibility; yoga has postures that
trigger the different joints of the body. Including those joints that are not acted upon
with regular exercise routines.

Benefits of Yoga 2: Yoga also increases the lubrication of joints, ligament and
tendons. The well-researched yoga positions exercise the different tendons and
ligaments of the body.

It has also been found that the body which may have started doing yoga being a
rigid one may experience a quite remarkable flexibility in the end on those parts of
the body which have not been consciously worked upon.

More to Come in Future posts

Practise Holistic Yoga Meditation - Peace and Stress relief

I started meditation about 30 years ago and have found the benefits to be life changing. I thought i was having lots of fun in my life before meditation but life has gotten so much better.

The Meditation has given me so much more than i could have ever imagined. It has given me direction, clarity and an inner peace. It helps me deal with any problems that come up through out the day with lightness and ease, instead of becoming bogged down with anxiety and stress. Stress is still there, we can't get away from that because the fact is this world is stressful, but my daily practise of meditation helps me try to cope with any and all situations with some degree of grace . I am very thankful for having had the
opportunity to learn this meditation. I especially enjoy being able to share and pass it on to my friends.

Penny O'Brien

Yoga Benefits the Sympathetic And Parasympathetic Nervous Systems

Fight or Flight: Sympathetic Nervous System

Frequently referred to as the “fight or flight response”, the sympathetic nervous system is responsible for alertness and wakefulness, as well as the ability to respond to stress.

In response to stimulus (mental or physical), hormones including noradrenaline and adrenaline are released by the adrenal glands. While it is technically very difficult to measure these hormones in individuals, simple signs of sympathetic activation can be seen in individuals including: increased pupil dilation, sweating, increased heart rate and blood pressure (frequently used in lie detection testing).

Heart rate and blood pressure are probably the easiest and most reliable of these signs to clinically measure and are most frequently used by medical researchers to study human response to stress, as well as recovery from stress.

Recovery & Regeneration: The parasympathetic nervous system

If the sympathetic system is the accelerator of our internal stress response system or what makes us turn ON, the parasympathetic system is considered to be ‘the brake’ or the OFF button. The parasympathetic system’s main role is to conserve energy. One way of doing this is to slow heart rate and energy needs, particularly when we are resting or sleeping. Parasympathetic activation is dominant when we are truly resting or sleeping (provided we are getting uninterrupted, quality sleep).

The parasympathetic is the part of your nervous system that slows you down, it’s responsible for telling your muscles to relax, improving your digestion and assimilation, boosting immunity, and helping you sleep better.The parasympathetic nervous system counteracts many stress-related symptoms and the negative by products of life in this world. Hatha Yoga increases the flow of prana, or life force, in your body.

Scientists have declared that today’s modern life style; the junked up, wired up caffeine fuelled society, frequently experiences an imbalance between sympathetic and parasympathetic balance. This has a tendency to make us prone to mental and physical burn out, periods of decreased mental concentration, immune imbalance and many stress related diseases including cardiovascular disease. The true long term effects of the modern wired up society we live in today will probably not be fully known for decades to come.

Nadi Shodan

Nadi Shodan Pranayama

Pranayama breathing techniques offer many benefits. Nadi Shodan also known as Alternate nostril breathing is a nice pranayama to learn. It is a very effective breathing technique which can be used to clear the energy centres within the body. This pranayama also helps move the flow of energy/chi through the subtle energy channels of the body, known as meridians.

Nadi Shodan breathing helps balance the right and left hemispheres of the brain and at the same time exercises the left and right lungs, helping to clear obstructions in both sides of the airways. You might become aware of this when transitioning from pranayama breathing to normal breathing.

Nadi Shodan breathing practice helps to get us going, wakes us up, gives us more mental energy so that we are more focused and alert. At the same time the body is able to remain calm and relaxed. Maintaining a condition of relaxation is always an advantage, our lives are so stressful we often feel run down and exhausted, so relaxation is good and recommended by physicians as a viable way of getting rid of stress.  

Nadi Shodan is a quick and simple practice. It revitalises, helps us to concentrate and think more clearly. We feel centred and better equipped to deal with any problems we may encounter during the day.This is such an easy practice, even the most time poor person should endeavour to find 5 minutes during the day to experience the benefits.  

If you would like to learn how to practice Nadi Shodan pranayama you are welcome to contact us at YMSA Yoga Meditation Studio Palm Beach. Leave us a comment below, along with your details. We will get back to you as soon as we can.

Namaste

Yoga Meditation - Group Meditation to Music Gauranga

Group Meditation to music is a great way to finish a yoga session