Meditation And Yoga

[2996041]

I'm just wondering, a few of my mates have started to get into meditation and/or yoga, how many of u would recommend it? They say it's good for their mental health. Just looking for opinions from both men and women tbh. Thanks

 

[Scarletbegonia]

Yoga provides balance and flexibility.
Meditation is a tool to calmness.
Both as practices help self discipline.

 

[rtg]

Yoga provides balance and flexibility.
Meditation is a tool to calmness.
Both as practices help self discipline.

Yoga also provides calmness. I used to practice a lot to help with my anxiety. I don’t really practice yoga anymore though.... I stopped going and lost my flexibility and then it was too hard and I gave up haha

I also highly recommend meditation. This helps me a lot with anxiety and helping me to switch off. YouTube is a great tool for guided meditation. I meditate every night and now I cannot get to sleep unless I do. I mix it up between guided meditation and non-guided when I just listen to storms on YouTube

 

[Scarletbegonia]

(Slaps forehead)
Right, @rtg
I didn’t translate from the hippie.
Balance is mental and physical. Maybe flexibility is, too. Hmmmm.

yoga got weird after CorePower started. It was the first overtly secular yoga studio, and had a competitive vibe. I have had clients come in for injuries from “competitive yoga.” Teachers were acting like the sensei from Cobra Kai. (Karate Kid)

Yoga based in, but not focused on, its own history will serve you well. It focuses the mind on, and overcomes, the body, taking it to its limits and gently going a little bit more.

Restorative yoga helps people with disabilities, temporary or permanent, gain physical balance and flexibility to make activities of daily life easier. It also has an emotional/psychological benefit.

 

[Scarletbegonia]

I never manage to stick at anything like that, with yoga when people start having bottom burps I'm just lmao, with meditation I'm just cracking up laughing right from the beginning. I've got too much crazy going on in my head for that kinda stuff, my meditation can be found with a plate full of good food and at the bottom of a glass, that's what works for me X

That last line is disrespectful to meditation practitioners.

You may find your joy overeating and over drinking. But you’ll find no meditation there.

 

[Scarletbegonia]

One of the shining lights of the consciousness movement died this week.
Sail on, Baba Ram Dass. Thank you for the chemical and behavioral enlightenment.

Baba wrote a little tome in 1971. I’ve had a copy since...1978? ‘79? A brilliant work to start adolescence. By 1984, I was surfing the psychedelic waves and dancing in the billows that Dass (when he was Richard Alpert) and former fellow Harvard prof Tim Leary set loose upon America. Set and setting was more my jam than Uncle Ken’s Prankster method.
But I passed the acid test. Repeatedly.
Graduated to the natural world, and always, as the option or accent, was sitting. Be Here Now.

As I unsuccessfully ride the barrel of emotions Baba’s death is opening in me, I knows this, respect for what people dedicate their live to is a wonderful, humble thing.

I hope to be humble.

 

[ArtAppreciation]

what would your goals be?
I personally prefer qigong over yoga because it’s on your feet and moving, albeit slowly.
I prefer wile t self meditation to guided, solo or group, but I do what I can, and the occasional group setting helps me reset, as it will be something different. keeps me from being too rote.

I’m after graceful aging, being able to do my physical job into my 70s with minimal pain and flexibility issues, mental calm and clarity, lowered BP and heart rate.

Qigong is a great workout. I like how the list of health benefits of yoga, tai chi, and qigong are all quite similar and read almost too good to be true.


I just started going to a new yoga class with my Mom and we are loving it. I think there might be a hippie in me somewhere.

 

[Tight_N_Juicy]

I've been using these to treat PTSD.

That and resistance training and medical cannabis.

 

[Scarletbegonia]

Thanks for the replies idk if it's really my thing but the people I know who are into both meditation and yoga say it's worth doing just to boost feeling good. I think I'll find out more for myself maybe give it a try to see how I feel about it. Can't do any harm i guess

what would your goals be?
I personally prefer qigong over yoga because it’s on your feet and moving, albeit slowly.
I prefer wile t self meditation to guided, solo or group, but I do what I can, and the occasional group setting helps me reset, as it will be something different. keeps me from being too rote.

I’m after graceful aging, being able to do my physical job into my 70s with minimal pain and flexibility issues, mental calm and clarity, lowered BP and heart rate.

 

[Tight_N_Juicy]

That last line is disrespectful to meditation practitioners.

You beat me to it.

I've got a bunch of fucked up shit going on in my head. That's *why* I meditate. FFS.

 

[Tight_N_Juicy]

I think she was just having a bit of fun not trying to poke fun at people who do meditate or yoga

I realize that, but that's why informing her is important.

She stated that she's got too much crazy for it, whether joking or not... Mental health issues are a big part of why meditation exists in the first place.

My first post in the thread. Yeah.

 

[AlteredEgo]

I had a job with an abusive boss. A lateral co-worker who knew I had a habit of a cigarillo after work, and/or another (or a shared pipe or hookah of high end tobacco) with a few sips of good cognac or red wine before bed on working days, used to tell our boss he needed me at the warehouse. It was an excuse to free me from the abuse for a few minutes. We'd grab a coffee from a shop that always comped me, and then sit on the roof of the warehouse and each smoke a cigarette.

This led to a several years long battle with nicotine addiction. And honestly? I like good pipe tobacco, and love a hookah, but I'm actually allergic to something in cigarettes. That's how I know addiction is a true monster. The allergy mattered not. I smoked a pack a week for years. I quit a few times, never more than 18 months or so.

Meditation and Prana breathing help me avoid tobacco products. I suspect I will always have cravings, and my brand will always smell enticing. But when I want to smoke, I sit down, do two minutes of Prana, drink 12 oz of water over the span of three minutes, and get back to whatever I was doing.

My therapist has me doing mindfulness practice. I hate it. But I have ADHD, and find it a helpful end or start to my day. I'm getting better at consistency. I found it had to be firmly attached to my schedule; I lack the discipline to just fit it in wherever.

I was born stiff and tight. I did ballet for 12 years and never advanced from beginner classes. I remained only adequately flexible. Once I stopped, I stiffened back up. I have been on and off with yoga for ten years. When I am consistent, I remain adequately flexible. Literally just flexible and strong enough to maintain good posture and touch my toes without bending my knees. If I stop for even a few weeks, I stiffen all the way back up. I'm currently on again, stiffer than I have ever been in my life. Progress is painful, boring, and slow, but I have health goals, and I need to stay the course.

In a world of constant stimulation, my practices of yoga, mindfullness meditation, and prana are teaching my neuro-atypical brain to slow the fuck down, and tolerate boredom. It's not fun to me. I hate it. But. It's helping. In the past, achieving a certain level of improvement made it become nore fun. Self-indulgence, in my experience, makes depression, anxiety, my crazy brain, and poor health tolerable. It's a mask. Yoga, meditation and Prana repair body and soul. Your mileage may vary.

 

[Scarletbegonia]

Discipline starts in the mind.


As an aside, please don’t place the entirety of flexibility on toe touches. That’s ONE muscle group holding things back.

 

[AlteredEgo]

Sidenote. The doctor I mentioned can call me "Girl" because she is old enough to be my mother, has adopted me as her little sister, is Southern, and loves me. It is not diminishing or dismissive, it is affectionate and appropriate. Just in case anyone is wondering about the departure from my general stance on being referred to that way.

 

[Tight_N_Juicy]

I don't honestly think there was any need for anyone to get heated... The things that people say on here is completely opinion based. Surely in this day and age we can agree everyone is entitled to that, providing they're not specifically going out of their way to offend or hurt people. I can see no malice in the things being said and certainly not an attack on people who meditate. I think maybe there are some cultural differences in the way we each use words. Anyway I think this has gone pretty wild. Thanks for all your responses I appreciate them all

Well you can't control how we react to threads or what others post within them. I'm sorry you got more than you asked for but I'm not sorry for being honest.

Things ended up civil enough, no one told anyone to fuck off. I still enjoy @Holly Doors quite a bit and often enjoy reading her open minded posts. This was just an instance where I felt some things needed to be said. Now it's done, and hopefully everyone got something out of reading this conversation.

Happy holidays, all.

 

[rtg]

I’ve been doing a lot of spin classes lately. Somehow they gave me a really sore back (at the side, mid and lower back). Last night it was unbearable, I could barely sleep. I ended up simply doing extended child’s pose and then moving my arms around to the side in that pose (about 45 degrees). And my back is not even sore now! Less than 24 hours later. One of the many benefits of yoga!

Which also reminds me, has anyone seen the Bikram documentary? That shit was scary.

 

[rtg]

def a lot of fun sex meditation exercises!

 

[Scarletbegonia]

I’ve been doing a lot of spin classes lately. Somehow they gave me a really sore back (at the side, mid and lower back). Last night it was unbearable, I could barely sleep. I ended up simply doing extended child’s pose and then moving my arms around to the side in that pose (about 45 degrees). And my back is not even sore now! Less than 24 hours later. One of the many benefits of yoga!

Which also reminds me, has anyone seen the Bikram documentary? That shit was scary.

I need to see that documentary.

 

[rtg]

@Scarletbegonia thanks for explaining that balance can also be mental, I like that

Competitive yoga? Sounds nuts.

I used to do restorative yoga every Friday after work, was so great to help me wind down after the week.

 

[Scarletbegonia]

I used restorative yoga to rehab my frozen shoulder. Two years of pain and limited motion.
While I was working with clients with frozen shoulder.

nuts, eh? No one I worked with was well educated on it, aside from a therapist out with heart issues.

I promise to focus on better translations from the hippie. Lol.