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What are the negative effects of meditation?

How do the psychological effects of yoga and meditation compare?

  • And can daily yoga substitute for meditation practice? Yoga has elements of meditation and it'd be nice to kill two birds (mental/physical) with one stone.

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    I like 's answer. I'd add that, for me, yoga is meditation.  I set aside a block of time to focus on quieting my mind, by distracting it via focus on increasing physical awareness.  Yoga in the West is often an athletic and exercise-based meditation; whether vinyasa flow, or a kundalini or anusara series, any series of asanas (postures) and pranayama (breathing) punctuated with corpse pose (savasana) or mountain pose (tadasana) is, at its core, a powerful form of meditation. Think of a runner's high.  For many regular practitioners, yoga achieves a similar result: combining physical movement - either restorative, rehabilitative, or energizing and exhilarating - with focus, resulting in mental clarity.  Just like meditation.  After all, you've got to do something with your body while you meditate - whether you meditate standing up, sitting down, walking around, standing on your head, or in a lotus or hero pose, with your hands in anjali mudra (prayer) or placed by your side or on your thighs...your body is still there, breathing and supporting your meditation.  That's yoga.

Marie Stein at Quora Visit the source

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Yoga asana (the physical practice of yoga) can certainly be meditative.  In my practice (ashtanga or vinyasa yoga classes) I use using breath to guide me in my movements.  I have found that linking breath and movement in this way is very meditative!  I don't know if I would consider a daily yoga practice a "substitute" for meditation.  They're very similar in some ways, but the impacts on the practitioner vary - your aim is the meditative experience that best suits you.  Some people practice yoga without focus on breath, others have a pranayama (breath meditation) practice where no yoga movements are involved, and you have a meditation practice.  I would just try a few things and see what you like.  You may combine them in your own way to form the best meditative experience for you :) 

Lacey Rae Trebaol

Yoga really consists of asana (movement); breath management (pranayama) and meditation although in our country people tend to separate them. I find meditation in all 3 and find the psychological benefits in all 3 "parts" of yoga. The breath is the key because breath joins body and mind. When we combine breath with movement, it becomes very meditative. This really isn't the case if movement is done just for "exercise" with no attention to the breath. I went to a terrific book signing recently and the author, Rama Jyoti Vernon, talked about meditation in movement and how deep we can go in asana and that the key is the breath. If  you'd like to learn the steps for creating meditation while moving please see my blog http://www.yogaforself.net/2015/04/19/more-than-one-way-to-meditate/    Rama calls it the inaction in the action and I think that's a wonderful way to think of it.

Joanne Thompson

Yoga is a mediation in movement. The mind becomes quiet. Ones breath becomes the focus. The body moves from the fluidity and intelligence of breath. The present moment becomes tangible. There is quiet and stillness with in movement and an ability to be in the moment without distractions.

Jesse Schein

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