OP ED: by James “JB” Bryson– I can tell you that my wife would come unglued if I continued to blog or post about negative shit, and not post this article. She has “personally” re -Tweeted it and shared it with her cache of friends already. “Happy wife, Happy life” are words to love by. But I will say that during these times of being isolated. These times of being away from family for an extensive period of time. These times of feeling powerless when I am normally a very resourceful person,,,,,,,,Meditation has helped.

https://www.prensa.com/impresa/vivir/yoga-para-estos-momentos-que-vivimos/

Meditation and yoga are very powerful tools that human beings have to put into practice the ancient philosophy of self-harmonization, which help reduce anxiety, stress, insomnia and other disharmonies. Disharmonies that have increased with everything that is generated by going through a pandemic.

They are very powerful and simple tools to practice for these moments. To learn more about these practices, I will answer some frequently asked questions:

How do these guided breathing and relaxation techniques help us to be calmer in these difficult times? They are very simple techniques that even children can practice, they connect us first of all to the present, from which we are disconnected almost all day; we spend most of the time thinking about the past and the future, and that is one of the biggest situations that generate anxiety, insomnia, stress, anger, headache, physical pain and other affectations. There are studies that show that human beings can have more than 50 thousand negative thoughts in a short time.

Over the years, when we grow after four or five years, our mind begins to program itself in the system that surrounds us, our interior is forgetting and the mind is feeding on the external. Over the years that is increasing. So when we begin to consciously breathe (inhale and exhale through the nose) even for five minutes a day, our insides come alive.

The practices: conscious breathing techniques for the morning. Before getting off your bed, sit with your back straight and eyes closed, bring awareness to the breath, it is soft and deep through the nose, inhale and exhale, feel that moment and the beginning of the day, receive it by thanking it and starting it from a conscious opening and connected to the present. We can take these practices to all areas: work, family, sports, really everything, transferring that harmony that is being generated to everything that surrounds us.

What really is meditation and yoga? Is it a religion as many people comment? If we were to define mindful breathing, meditation and yoga techniques, we would say that they are a rotation of consciousness, philosophically.

But let’s go by parts, meditation or yoga are not religions, they are ancient philosophical and practical knowledge of how to feel and recognize what we really are. India, where this knowledge arises or is channeled, throughout its history has been invaded by many cultures, countries and those cultures took meditation and yoga as practices and placed their religious beliefs on it. But meditation and yoga, when they arise from their tradition, did not contain any religious connotations.

We have to understand that connecting with everything that surrounds us is something natural in everyone, whether we realize it or not that we are doing it. For example, a person who walks through a forest in silence, who looks at the sea, who paints a picture or who composes music, is in active meditation. There is a lot of confusion and, above all, poor translation of this knowledge in the West. When we talk about meditation, people believe that they have to look for something or get something that is not in them and it really is the opposite.

(The author is president of the International Organization of Yoga therapy, Ayurveda and Yoga)