Yoga vs Meditation for Mental Health: Which is Better? – Heart Shaped Sol

Yoga vs meditation for your mental health. Which is better for you? Both are powerful tools that can help you live your best life. They can support your healing journey and spiritual growth. You can certainly do both, and many do. But basic understanding of each discipline will help you take your best first step.

This post will first define yoga and meditation. It will then explain the many similarities and differences between them. Finally, it will present some questions to ask yourself to see which may be the better fit.

Yoga vs Meditation for Mental Health

What is Yoga?

In the West, the term yoga is generallyy understood as a physical exercise regimen, or the practice of asanas (yoga postures). This is not wrong. But it demonstrates an incomplete understanding of what yoga truly is.

Yoga, a Sanskrit word, means “union.” Yoga’s roots go back thousands of years, to ancient India. Sadhguru, the author of Inner Engineering: a Yogi’s Guide to Joy, tells the tale of how Shiva, not known as a god at the time, was the first yogi to transmit the seeds of yoga to his seven disciples, or Sapta Rishis.

According to Sadhguru, yoga is a complete system for humans to realize their oneness with all-that-is, or their union with God. The physical postures, or asanas, are a part of preparation for this spiritual growth. They help move and release the memories, or programming, stored in your energy field and physical body through many lifetimes.

In simpler terms, praciting these yoga poses is much like meditation through physical motion. In addition, yoga is an umbrella term of a practice that also includes periods of meditation and breathing exercises, in addition to the physical postures. Yoga Nidra, for example, is mostly a mental practice that helps you fall asleep, although its range of applications are far greater.

Benefits of Yoga

Today, one can easily find yoga at local studios, spiritual retreats and even fitness centers. The type of yoga that Sadhguru is talking about, is rarer. Still, even at the local fitness center level, yoga is a holistic practice that brings amazing effects to our mind and body.

Physical benefits: A regular yoga practice helps you improve flexibility, build physical strength and endurance. Different yoga poses focus on different parts of the body. They challenge your physical balance, helping you improve physical awareness and stability. Yoga has been linked to reduced inflammation of the body and better heart health.

Mental benefits: Yoga promotes relaxation, reduces stress and improves your mood. All physical exercise can help you feel better. But yoga has been shown to elevate levels of a brain chemical called gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), which is associated with better mood and decreased anxiety. In addition, yoga has been linked to improved cognitive skills, such as memory, learning and decision-making.

Energetic benefits: Physical practice of yoga postures helps the life-force energy, or Prana or chi, to flow. They also remove any blockages in the energy body. Similarly, yoga helps strengthen and balance your chakras through movement, as different asanas are designed to help different chakras. These energetic benefits lead to increased vitality, mental clarity, and a greater sense of well-being.

[Also see Chakra Healing for Beginners: A Complete Guide, for more.]

yoga vs meditation benefits and differences

What is Meditation?

Meditation is another ancient practice. According to the American Psychological Association, it is a “extended contemplation … in order to achieve focused attention or an otherwise altered state of consciousness and to gain insight into oneself and the world.”

The act of focused contemplation is said to have been engaged by humans as early as 200,000 years ago. Scientists believe that early contemplation gave rise to human usage of symbols, and later, language.

Today, there are countless types of meditation techniques that one can engage in. Silent meditation, Mindfulness meditation, and guided mediations, just to name a few. There are sitting meditations and walking meditations.

But one thing remains consistent: the focus of meditation is on the mind and the thoughts. A meditative practice lets you observe your different mental states, as well as physical and emotional states, in stillness.

[See How Does Meditation Work? Change Your Brain, Find Your Happy Place, for more.]

Benefits of meditation

Mental and physical benefits: Studies show that meditation lowers stress and calms the nervous system. It offers many similar benefits to yoga. It improves cognitive functions such as memory, attention and learning. Meditation also improves sleep, lowers blood pressure and reduces pain perception.

Meditation can alleviate symptoms of various stress-related illnesses. It is known particularly to improve heart health, lowering your heart rate, blood pressure and harmful hormones. In addition, with increased self-awareness through meditation, one can enjoy greater compassion for others and an increased sense of inner peace.

Energetic benefits: Energetic benefits of meditation are also similar to those of yoga, although it greatly depends on what kind of meditation you do. Meditation helps flow of energy through our energy bodies and balances our chakras. Such energetic balancing can be achieved through one’s placement of attention during meditation.

Yoga vs Meditation Similarities

You can probably already tell that there are lots of similarities between yoga and meditation. Each is a practice of mindfulness, or present moment awareness. They both profoundly impact our overall health, supporting the physical body, mind, emotions and energy.

Includes Breathwork

Yoga and meditation both engage in intentional breathing. Subtle differences in how we breath impacts flow of energy through our bodies and our physical health. Breath work is incorporated into yoga asanas. Certain meditations place great emphasis on specific breathwork to direct energy.

Supports Healing

Both yoga and meditation support our natural ability to heal the mind and the body. Both take a holistic approach to health by addressing the non-physical aspects of our well-being. They both reduce stress and improve cognitive functions. Yoga and meditation both help the flow of energy and removes blockages through our energy bodies, and help activate and balance the chakras.

Facilitates Spiritual Growth

Yoga and meditation are each a spiritual practice, although this really depends on how deeply you go. But even at the lightest level, a regular practice will benefit you by increasing your level of self-awareness and compassion for others.

Community

As you engage in regular, and deeper practice of yoga or meditation, you will find communities of like-minded people. Yoga can offer amazing local communities through classes and events. Some communities are created by famous teachers, who host teaching programs and retreats catered to yoga.

Local communities around meditation may be harder to find. But there are thriving meditation communities online. You can easily take meditation classes and even join retreats online for meditation. If you’ve never tried meditating as a group, you are missing out! The energy amplifies and connects, and you can feel it more viscerally. Although not exactly the same as in-person participation, online meditation events are also very powerful.

Way of Life

Both for yoga and meditation, once you establish a regular practice, it becomes a way of life. Benefits of a regular yoga and/or meditation practice are so great, that people who do it, do so continuously. The challenge is in getting started and building the routine that works for you.

Yoga vs Meditation Key Differences

Movement

The main difference between yoga and meditation comes down to physical movements. With yoga, you give presence to your body through movement and the discipline of engaging in an asana practice.

With sitting meditation, you also exercise discipline over your body, in an active search of stillness through surrender. Meditation’s focus is squarely on the mind, through deep awareness of our thoughts, sensations and emotions. Emphasis is on stillness, both of the mind and the body.

Accessibility

With yoga, you usually need an instructor, and a good one, to get a solid start. Even though there are usually many yoga studios in most cities across the United States, there is a big difference in the quality of instruction you will receive.

In-person yoga sessions are also expensive. Even though there are more affordable options online, they are just not the same as having an instructor correct your asana in real time. Speaking of time, typical yoga sessions will take up about an hour of your time.

Meditation is vastly more accessible in that you can get started right now, all by yourself, for free. For any length of time. All you have to do is find a comfortable place and try to settle your mind and body for a period of time. You can find further instruction through books and online. There are countless guided meditations available on YouTube right now that you can do for free. While there are meditation classes you can take, this is not nearly as necessary as starting an asana practice.

[Also see 5 Best Meditations on YouTube for Healing & Spiritual Growth or Guided Chakra Meditation for Sleep with Pranic Energy Healing [VIDEO].]

Questions to Ask Yourself

If you are trying to figure out which is the best choice for you at this time, here are some questions to consider.

Immediate Goals

What am I hoping to achieve right now? What is the main thing you are trying to gain by starting this practice? Is it stress reduction, better sleep, inner peace? Is it all those things and a vibrant local community where you can meet like-minded people?

Am I looking for a practice that offers physical benefits in addition to mental ones? Yoga offers physical benefits, including balance, strength, and endurance. Meditation, with all of its amazing benefits, is not going to help you strengthen your muscles.

Inclination

Do I have any physical limitations or injuries I need to consider? You can still practice gentle yoga, or do your poses selectively, but this is definitely something to consider.

Am I drawn more naturally to physical movement or to stillness? This comes down to your general preference of movement. Stillness just comes much easier to me, for example. For others, physical movement is more natural state of being.

Do I prefer practicing in a group setting with an instructor, or do I prefer practicing alone? While group sessions are simply amazing, meditation is inherently a solitary act. Yoga will usually involve an instructor and fellow students.

Availability

What is my budget for this new practice? Yoga classes can be expensive, especially if you want to make it your regular practice. It is much cheaper to start meditating, as described earlier.

How much time do I realistically have to dedicate to a practice? A yoga class usually runs at least 45 minutes to an hour. Meditation can be much shorter.

No matter what you choose, your new practice will bring you amazing benefits to your mind, body and spirit. And if you start something and find out that it’s not for you, you can always try the other! I hope your new practice surprises and delights you, so that you want to go deeper and it becomes a way of life.

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