Integrative Practice : Yoga 

Yoga as a tool for building emotional and social intelligence

Yoga is an ancient practice designed to build, among other things, self-awareness and self-management.

It’s designed to help us understand and manage our body, our nervous system and our mind to allow us to become more present and less distracted by them. It enables us to notice our thoughts, our emotions and our instinctive reactions to situations. Then to take a moment to choose how we respond, rather than react.

Learning these skills are absolutely critical in our fast paced, often overwhelming modern existence. They are also essential to thrive at senior levels in organisations.

Physical Exercise 

(Asana)

In the West, we often think of yoga as a form of physical exercise or competitive gymnastics. However, this perspective overlooks the true value of yoga, as it offers many benefits beyond just the physical practice.

The physical practice (asana) is only one part of yoga. The shapes and poses we can create are not so much the end goal as how we do them, and what we learn about ourselves on the way.

 
Meditation

(Samyama) 

Originally the point of the physical practice of yoga was to get the body and mind prepared for the real work – meditation.

Meditative practice is key to learning in adults, its critical for emotional regulation, resilience and taking a more measured, responsive approach to our lives.

There are different meditative techniques we can blend into our lives (not all involve sitting like a guru on the floor).  

 

 Breath work 

(Pranayama)

It’s become quite fashionable to explore the power of breathwork techniques on the nervous system in recent years. Its been a yogic tradition for centuries.

Many yoga classes have a breath management exercise as part of the class. 

You can also employ simple breath work techniques in your everyday life to calm the mind, relax the nervous system or energise yourself.

Asana, Learn More
Meditation, Learn More
Breath, Learn More

There are many yoga classes you can take online or in person.

There are various types of yoga that meet different goals and may incorporate different elements from the above

More details here

 

 How you approach your yoga practice will make a  difference to the benefit you can  from it. 

 

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