Lifestyle changes in the 21st century have led to the growth of many illnesses and diseases associated with the mind and body. Growing work pressure and economic uncertainty forces us to neglect the well-being of our body and the brain. In such a scenario, practicing holistic yoga on a regular basis can do wonders for your body, mind and soul.

So, what exactly is holistic yoga? Well, basically this is not a form of yoga. It is a fine blend involving yoga practices and the idea of holism. Holistic yoga is more bent towards our lifestyle approaches, and is now offered in almost all wellness resorts in India and the world.

In this guide you will read about:

Guide To Yoga For Holistic Wellbeing – What is it, Benefits and More

1. What exactly is holistic yoga?

2. How Yoga benefits your body, mind and soul?

3. How Yoga is your weapon against undesirable habits and addictions?

4. How Yoga and enlightenment: Finding the unshakeable self?

5. What exactly is holistic yoga?

6. How Yoga benefits your body, mind, and soul?

7. How Yoga is your weapon against undesirable habits and addictions?

8. How to take a measure of the addictions?

9. How to Say goodbye to your addictions?

10. Yoga and enlightenment: How to find the unshakeable self?

11. How Yoga positions and environment for better yoga practice?

12. How Yoga is a Way of Life Leading to Self- Enlightenment?

13. How Yoga teaches us to be submissive and respectful?

14. How Yoga teaches us to be respectful towards the body?

15. How Yoga teaches meditation?

16. How Yoga teaches how to manage stress without Yoga?

17. How Yoga teaches how to go with the flow?

What exactly is holistic yoga?

While you practice holistic yoga, you just not focus on the physical attributes of yoga but go much deeper than this. It also involves your entire routine. Holistic Yoga involves the application of holism combined with yoga to adopt a lifestyle that keeps our mind & body in perfect balance! Most of the students of yoga tend to practice holistic yoga and still are unaware of it. With holistic yoga, you can indeed nourish the spiritual aspects of your life besides concentrating on the material things.

The practice of yoga finds its origins some 5000 years back in India. Even after these many years, lots of people across the globe continue practicing yoga to refine their mind, body and soul. In fact, recent years have witnessed lots of people joining the bandwagon to adopt a healthier lifestyle. And, holistic yoga, allows you to do just this! There are essentially six main types of yoga. These include Iyengar, Bikram, Kundalini, Vinyasa, Ashtanga, and Hatha. Yoga asanas when combined with breathing exercises not only bring calmness and harmony, but also enhance the connection between your mind & body.

To get the best results, you need to practice yoga in a proper sequence. Initially, you need to start with the stretching and breathing exercises. One needs to first focus on the outer side of the body and then draw the attention towards the inner part. You can even concentrate on a candle flame to achieve a deep state of meditation, which is the ultimate purpose of the yoga poses and asanas. However, this stage comes with a lot of practice, dedication and patience. It takes years for any person to achieve the supreme state of inner peace by practicing holistic yoga.

Talking about the concept of holism, it means that fragments of a system are never alone. All are considered to be a part of the system. Applying this concept to the human body, one can conclude that the body gets affected & shaped because of all its parts. Each part can have a profound effect on the entire human body. Therefore, it is advisable to stay away from things that can have negative effects on body parts. The concept of holistic yoga comprises of practicing yoga on a daily basis, managing stress, and having the right balance between body and mind. Wellness hotel consultants all over the world advise wellness resorts to include yoga as it is highly beneficial for overall wellbeing.

How Yoga benefits your body, mind, and soul?

Yoga – the very word conveys that ultimate tango of spiritualism and fitness. However, beyond just the essence of the ‘feel good’ element, Yoga does give us a plethora of health benefits. So, while rooting for our stress-free physicality let us check out some of the important beneficial factors of Yoga.

1. Weight Loss – Obesity has always been of those malefic factors affecting the middle class of America. In this case, Yoga can seriously help in enhancing our capacity of metabolism. This can be synced with better functioning of our organs, along with facilitating the development of right muscles. This proportional exercise forms can ultimately result in credible weight loss and a balanced lifestyle. Expert yoga trainers can help you learn the correct poses to lose weight in wellness resort in India.
2. Respiration and Circulation – Yoga has always given importance to our correct posture of breathing. Controlled inhaling and exhaling can do wonders for our lungs and overall respiratory functions. Moreover, such wholesome breathing techniques can also help in our internal circulation of nutrients and oxygen.
3. Stress Management – Beyond mere physicality, it is the psychological scope of things that really drives our active output. In this case, Yoga brings out the proverbial ‘best out of us’, through its deep breathing techniques. A counter to all those accumulated stress , the important advantage of such exercises is the enhanced level of oxygen supply to the brain. This in turn helps in memory and improved concentration.
4. Enhanced posture – The correct nature of body alignment has always formed one of the basic attributes of Yoga. The results can be variedly beneficial like strengthening of various muscles and ligaments. More importantly, the apt exercise forms can also help us in achieving that refined state of bone density and strength.
5. Improved Immunity- One of the less focused aspects of our body, immunity does play a big part in mitigating a number of diseases. In this respect, Yoga does have an advantageous effect on our lymphatic system. This internal organization is directly related to the overall capacity of our built-in immune system.A wellness consultant
6. Overall psychological benefit- We did mention that Yoga has as much to do with our psychological state as with our physical state. This collective advantage is felt more when we have to cope up with daily pressures and stresses. This credible increase in brain activity is manifested through our calm senses and responses. Moreover, Yoga as a spiritual field is also dependent on the meditation factor. In such cases, the ‘limelight of well being’ is focused more on individualistic strengths and peacefulness.

How Yoga is your weapon against undesirable habits and addictions?

Forming bad habits and becoming an addict is a bad choice that many people make, often unwittingly. Although picking a bad habit is never an intuitive decision but yes, we can say that it is something that people fall into knowingly. As in, everyone knows that cigarette smoking is injurious for health, but still they continue with the habit.

How to take a measure of the addictions?

Addiction can be of many types like drug addiction, alcohol abuse, shopping addiction, caffeine addiction, eating addiction, or any other activity that is done excessively, and sometimes compulsively. Be it any type of addiction, it is bad for the one who is addict and for his family and friends as well.

Becoming an addict is easy but coming out of the vicious cycle of addiction is extremely hard, not impossible though. One needs to be strong both physically and emotionally in order to overcome addiction, and find ways to fortify the will and desire to quit.

How to Say goodbye to your addictions?

Once you decide to quit every bad habit and addiction, you can take resort of yoga, which efficiently breaks the addiction cycle. Yoga practice makes people strong both physically and mentally, and enables them to win the fight against many addictions. An addict loses confidence and self-esteem but the practice of Yoga revives the lost confidence and the person gets the strength to overcome addiction.

Yoga is any day a more gentle and effective way to leave addictions and bad habits. Yoga is a natural and a healthy way that enables an addict to reconnect with his body, changes his perspective, teaches the skill of stress and anxiety management, and repairs the damages that addiction caused to the body. Yoga heals not just the body after addiction but the mind as well, which is unlikely to the medications that one takes to get rid of an addiction.

After a person gets rid of the addiction, the body might see some weakness, but Yoga can help in fortifying the body. It helps you regain the normal health. Yoga eliminates the chances of relapse and reduces the level of anxiety and frustration one goes through while the withdrawal period, rather it has a relaxing effect on an individual fighting with addiction. Yoga is extremely helpful for people who want to get rid of every bad habit they have.

Yoga helps a person to get rid of any addiction and bad habit they have in a most harmless way. It enables a person to regain the lost confidence and self-esteem, and to gain the strength in order to fight addiction.

Yoga and enlightenment: How to find the unshakeable self?

Yoga is one of the few natural ways, which makes you get that nice and good feeling. It has become a mandatory inclusion in wellness resort programs. It bestows upon you a feeling of enlightenment. It makes you feel as if you are connected with the Supreme Being. Not only does it have a positive effect on you physically but it also helps in spiritual and emotional development.

It brings about a complete change in your outlook. You get over the prejudice that you may have always carried and there is a drastic positive change in your viewpoint. Yoga teaches you discipline and it also teaches you to have better focus and concentration. It makes you more mature and brings about a transformation in you and makes you a better human being.

How Yoga positions and environment for better yoga practice?

One has to understand that you will have to put in years of devotion and practice to come somewhere nearby to perfection as far as yoga is concerned. It is not something that can be learnt easily and you need to put in lots of efforts to learn to perfection the art of yoga. Remember that you need to have correct environment and should be aware of the yoga positions. Things to be taken care of-

• First and foremost, you need to learn yoga from an experienced yoga instructor who will teach you the correct postures and asanas. Remember that in yoga it is very important that you maintain the correct postures and do the yoga in the right way.
• Remember that you need to practice the asanas on a regular basis without fail if you want to learn them well and if you want to take the advantage of the long-term benefits.
• The best environment for yoga is early morning before sunrise. Cleanse yourself physically and then get ready for the mental cleansing with yoga. Make sure that the room where you practice yoga is clean, airy and bright and does not have a sleep[y environment.
• Practice at the same place and at the same time everyday. Your practice should include breathing exercises some easy postures and some difficult postures; an amalgamation of different postures.
• You can make use of modern gears and equipment for practicing yoga. You can make use of yoga mats,blankets,meditationcushions,blocks for practicing certain postures etc.

Position Tips

You need to position your body in a particular way when you are practicing meditation. Few position tips

• Don’t practice meditation on an empty stomach but at the same time make sure that you don’t overeat. Ideally, go for a simple meal of legumes,veggies,brown rice etc.Have your meal at least one hour before meditation.
• You should select position for your legs which will make you feel relaxed. You must keep in mind that meditation is about feeling relaxed and focused and it is not about subjecting your body to pain.
• Ensure that you keep your back straight. This will be good for the spine as well as for the lungs. If you don’t wish to sit on the floor then you can even make use of a chair which will keep your back straight.
• Keep your eyes closed and place your hands in a position which will help increase your focus and make you feel more relaxed.
• Try out different meditation techniques. You should at least know the basic meditation technique. Once you have learnt the basics well then you can go in for the more complex forms.

How Yoga is a Way of Life Leading to Self- Enlightenment?

Everyone knows when you have someone or something with you, you hardly realize its importance in your life. However, when that person or thing separates from you, only then you understand its true worth. Well Yoga is not an exception to this. Following are five great lessons for life that Yoga teaches us and that we should always remember.

How Yoga teaches us to be submissive and respectful?

People sometimes flaunt their body’s capability of performing various yoga postures that might be difficult ones. They often take photographs and upload it on their blogs or social networking profiles. However, on the contrary, yoga is nothing about boasting or show off. Yoga is by the way the process of self-examination to be done with modesty and does not depend on how people think of it. While doing Yoga your aim should be more towards self-enlightenment.

How Yoga teaches us to be respectful towards the body?

Your body is your biggest asset and you need to be caring and aware about the various needs and demands of it. You need to know when you need to stop and not to force your body to limits but to let it perform on its own. Sadly, people only realize it when they get hurt or injured. Remember Yoga is not a killing competition, it requires patience and perseverance.

How Yoga teaches meditation?

Meditation is the most important part of yoga in the absence of which a person might feel lost, especially when he has been doing it for a long time and could not continue due to some unavoidable reasons. Even the slightest of worries may make you feel tense and depressed. Hence, even when you are not doing the poses you can take small intervals to meditate and concentrate.

How Yoga teaches how to manage stress without Yoga?

When you are into Yoga, you feel like you can fight back any problem. However when you are forced to stay away from your Yoga practice, you will realize that there are other ways like reading, gardening, spending time with family and friends that would help you stay happy and cheerful.

How Yoga teaches how to go with the flow?

People at times are unwilling to accept a change, especially an unpleasant one. However, staying away or even while doing Yoga, you will realize that everything that happens, happens for a good reason and you just need to let it go.

Practicing Yoga without doubt improves your well-being; however, even staying away for sometime due to certain reasons is important, as it makes you a better person.