Yoga is a proven fitness mantra for Team India to tackle heightened pre-match stress and anxiety. Yoga helps every player prepare for extreme conditions alongside practising hard at the nets.
Particularly during a pandemic when living inside a bio-bubble can be difficult due to the restrictions that can make the players feel isolated and distressed at any time.
During the International Yoga Day this Year, former West Indies Cricket Captain Sir Richie Richardson had urged the Caribbean citizens to join the live Yoga session of the Indian High Commission in Guyana. In his appeal to the people to be home in the pandemic, he called Yoga a gift from India.
Former Indian Cricketer Virendra Sehwag’s tweet on International Yoga Day further praised Yoga and meditation as a remarkable gift by India to the rest of the world. Former India cricketer VVS Laxman also mentioned that Yoga adds years to life in his Tweet.
The practice of meditation and relaxation asanas are powerful mindfulness tools to increase self-awareness through deep meditation that integrates the body and mind, improving health and healing and promoting harmony.
Pranayama techniques provide methods to attain higher vibratory energy and awareness to help one excel beyond their usual boundaries.
Regular practice of meditation and pranayama has the following wellness benefits for players:
- Physical wellness by maintaining the body in optimal conditions and health.
- Improved overall vitality and strength as stagnant energy is released.
- Higher confidence amongst players powered by a lighter, more creative, and joyful mind.
Yoga asanas, meditation and pranayama can help the players give their optimum performances. A key highlight among all the practices is an exclusive Yoga Nidra meditation and relaxation session.
What is Yoga Nidra?
Also known as yogic sleep, Yoga Nidra is a systematic meditation technique that is extremely powerful yet easy to develop and maintain, bringing a sense of wholeness of mind, body, and spirit.
Also known as psychic sleep, during Yoga Nidra, the practitioner rests in Savasana and reaches a state of inner awareness and deep relaxation where tensions are released, resulting in a clearer mind with powerful thoughts.
This relaxation technique can also be used as a preliminary to sleep.
The benefits of Yoga Nidra are manifold, with numerous positive effects on our sleep, respiration, heart rate, brain wave pattern, parasympathetic nervous system, and holistic healing of the mind and body.
- Thirty to forty-five minutes of Yoga Nidra is equivalent to three hours of deep sleep. This meditation technique balances any sleep deprivation, treats insomnia, and promotes sound sleep to rejuvenate players for sports performances.
- Yoga Nidra reduces the body’s oxygen requirement and lowers the metabolic rate. Slower and deeper breathing in Savasana results in higher states of relaxation.
- This meditation helps lower heart rates and regulates systolic and diastolic blood pressures.
- Research suggests changes in brain wave patterns from beta to alpha and alpha to theta.
- Yoga Nidra eliminates any stress and anxiety of the mind and body, serving as an advanced psychiatric tool.
- It alleviates endocrinal imbalances and ensures optimal functioning of the endocrine system.
- Yoga Nidra improves willpower, concentration and increases working efficiency due to greater energy levels.
- Yoga Nidra detoxifies the body and the mind at the subconscious level, rejuvenates and recharges it and is an ultimate tool for healing without any side effects.
Yoga also prevents sports injuries by strengthening the entire body and improving reflexes through the practice of cricket stretches.
