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With yoga you can work on your awareness. It is more than just doing postures that make you limber. Yoga includes meditation, philosophy and exercises for the body. It is a complete vision of life, originating in India.
The word yoga is Sanskrit and means yuk: it is a way of life with which you strengthen the connection between your body and your mind, but also with others and with life itself. It is therefore ideally suited to help with awareness.
Awareness means being aware of who you are and what’s going on. With our busy lives (work, study, hobbies and family) we often race on and on and have no time to stop. We usually work on autopilot. You are only busy with things that have to be done and your focus is on all the problems and activities outside yourself. In fact, there is never any room for awareness or reflection.
On top of that, almost everyone lives with stress. It takes a lot of energy to keep all the balls high: worries about money, health, the children. Because of the stress we get bigger and smaller complaints and mentally we feel exhausted. But are we actually aware of this? Do we know what we need, do we reflect on who we are and what we want?
Awareness is self-examination. You take the time to come back to yourself, you slow down and look inside. This is only possible if there is silence, space and time. Then your feelings come out and your true self can show itself. This is actually taking care of yourself. Yoga is a very suitable way to do this.
When you practice yoga, there are three ways you can increase your awareness: physical exercises, meditation and breathing exercises.
The best known part of yoga is the physical exercises, called asanas. At first glance, you might think a yogi is just doing some stretching, but there’s more to it than that. By doing yoga exercises, you gain insight into your own body. The awareness applies not only to your mind, but also to your body. What can you handle, where are your limits, how does it feel if you respect them or not? Are you tired or just fit? Do you feel tension in your body? Yoga is in fact meditation in motion.
By doing the exercises, you work on flexibility and strength. You learn to be gentle with yourself. But a lot can also come loose. Tension often gets stuck in your muscles and joints. There are postures that open the chest, for example. If you store a lot of tension there, a posture like this can suddenly release it. Then suddenly you can feel emotions rising up. Body and mind are clearly related. So by doing physical exercises, you might as well gain a lot of insight into your emotions.
Yoga exercises also help to ground. By taking the time to do a pose, you deeply experience how your body feels. This gets you out of your head, which puts the fretting to rest. You can also get rid of a lot of stress with yoga. You reconnect with the here and now and this ensures that you are grounded, with your feet firmly on the floor.
Another important part of the yoga practice is the breathing exercises. These are called Pranayama. There are different types, but all of them help you to consciously control your breathing so that you can relax. Mindfulness also works with breathing exercises. Stress and anxiety are known to affect breathing.
That’s how you start breathing high in the chest when you’re stressed. Some Pranayama exercises help you to breathe calmly and deeply into your belly again (although there are some that actually boost the energy, but you shouldn’t do those when you are stressed).
Focusing on the breath partly gives you back a sense of control, but it’s also a meditative activity that helps you become aware of yourself. Your attention goes inward and you come to rest again.
Meditation is also part of the yoga practice. By being still and focusing your attention on your inner world, you become aware of what is on your mind. Emotions and thoughts may come up, but you just let them pass, without acting on the stories. Meditating in the yoga tradition can be done in several ways. The attention can be focused on the breath, but also chanting a mantra or focusing on a fixed point is possible.
As you can see, yoga can contribute to more awareness in several ways. You are engaged with body, mind, breath and emotions. It helps you come back to the present moment. Yoga is very suitable to get in better shape if you suffer from anxiety, stress or restlessness. You could support this process with microdosing.
Microdosing can also help with anxiety and stress while promoting awareness. By taking a very small amount of truffles, which contain psilocybin, you help your body and mind to get back in balance. It can promote a sense of calm, boost concentration, give more energy, and provide a better mood. In our webshop you can buy the handy Microdosing XP truffles.
