The Heart Of Yoga - Developing A Personal Practice

The Powerful Secret Of Integrating Multiple Elements Into Your Yoga Practice...

In our modern health system and especially in modern medicine the idea of isolating one symptom or problem then trying to treat just that symptom is widespread.

You might take a diuretic to lower your blood pressure and statins to reduce your cholesterol.

Then you go to a psychologist or psychotherapist to deal with your excessive anxiety and your "type A" personality.

You get liposuction as a full on onslaught in your "battle of the bulge" to remove the excess body fat around your tummy.

But the high blood pressure, the cholesterol, the anxiety and type A personality and the fat on your tummy are all inter-related.

They're all symptoms of a poor diet and lifestyle and even modern medicine is now realizing that trying to treat the body like a machine made up of separate parts is ineffective and can even be dangerous.

Every part of your physical body, your mind and your emotions are all interrelated.

Modern science has discovered that when you feel happy that can lower your blood pressure, reduce fat storage, improve the functioning of your immune system and create a whole range of other positive benefits throughout your body.

Science has also demonstrated that poor physical health – high blood pressure for example – can leave you irritable and anxious.

Just learning to think more clearly – cognitive therapy – can reduce anxiety and blood pressure and help relieve depression.

And this is just a tiny snapshot of how all our bodies systems tie together.

Modern science is now learning that a combination of therapies to treat your body, your mind, your emotions and even your spiritual health as a whole integrated system can be far more effective at treating disease than any single therapy.

It's taken us decades of astonishingly expensive and elaborate technological and medical research to discover the basic wisdom ancient yoga teachers have used for thousands of years.

In the ancient yoga traditions and especially in Viniyoga, your yoga practice combines a whole range of different elements to engage your mind, your body, your emotions and your spirit.

Most important of all your practice is custom designed to fit you.

You should have a clear intention to every yoga practice.

You should set out with a clear goal of what you're trying to achieve.

It's a shame but many modern western yoga modalities have lost this integration of different methods in yoga practice.

When you design YOUR yoga session you might include...

# Breathing or pranayama.

# Physical postures or asana.

# Sound with or without meaning

# Chanting or repeating (silently or aloud) some phrase, poem or prayer that has significance and meaning to you.

# Meditation

# Prayer and

# Relaxation or savasana.

In a well designed yoga session every one of these elements is combined together carefully and customized for your unique physiology, psychology, and spritual beliefs - whatever is appropriate and useful for you now.

Most important of all every element is combined with an intention in mind.

You first started practicing yoga because you wanted some kind of results out of your practice.

You might want to relieve stress or back pain.

You might want to improve the quality of your sleep or overcome insomnia.

You might want to get your moods under control.

You might just want to find some inner peace in our crazy, hectic modern world.

Whatever your intention is right now every part of your yoga practice should be custom designed to serve that intention – to take you closer to the goal you set for today's practice.

Having a clear intention and combining different elements and techniques into your yoga practice will give you more rapid results.

15-20 minutes of highly focused, customized, integrated practice can be far more effective than a 60 minute yoga class.

Also, you're more likely to continue with short, tightly focused yoga sessions where you see real results.

So having a clear intention of what you want to achieve every time you practice and combining many different elements into your yoga practice is an ancient yoga secret that is now being validated with modern science.

You can listen to the full audio of this article and seven more free audio clips at the links below.