Free Yoga Lesson Plan With 43 Meditations Exercises
This meditation exercises themed yoga lesson plan was created using the Yoga Genie Lesson Planner. You can give it to your students as a handout, and ask them to pick one every week for the next year to practice at home.
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43 Meditation Exercises Yoga Lesson Plan
Each yoga lesson plan you create within the Yoga Genie Lesson Planner comes with a long version of the lesson plan (that can be viewed online or downloaded as PDFs). The long version has everything you need to practice the lesson plan before getting to class. You can take it to class with you (but you may prefer to take the short version). The long version is a great handout to give to your students, especially your one-to-one students. It immediately shows your professionalism, and increases your expertise in the eyes of your students.
Free Video Stream
43 Meditation Exercises Yoga Lesson Plan Video Stream
Each yoga lesson plan you create within the Yoga Genie Lesson Planner comes with a video stream of the lesson plan. You’ll be able to provide the streams to students as a URL, so they can practice from home.
3 Meditation Exercises
Below are 3 of the 43 meditation exercises in the Yoga lesson plan.
Sit with legs crossed (or on a chair). Close eyes. Bring attention to the surface you’re sitting on. Become aware of how it supports your sitting bones. Expand your awareness to feel the touch of your clothes against your skin. How do the different fabrics feel?
~ Attune To Touch Mediation
Sit with legs crossed. Close eyes. In your mind’s eye see yourself saying: “Well done” to each of your gifts. Recognise them as gifts given to you for the benefit and enjoyment of yourself and others.
~ Awareness Of Your Gifts Meditation
Sit with legs crossed. Close eyes. Silently digest this quote from the Bhagavad Gita: “Harmony is eating and resting, sleeping and walking, balance in all you do. This is the path to peace.”
~ Balance In All You Do Meditation
FAQs
Whenever I give a yoga class (e.g. with meditations), I like to imagine a student will come up to me in class and ask me a bunch of questions.
So, I study up on the subject, and make notes in FAQ format (see below). Once I’ve completed my FAQs, I read one, close my eyes and answer it the best I can. I open my eyes to see how much detail I got right. If I missed anything, I repeat the process until I get it right.
This gives me huge confidence when giving a Yoga class or one to one session with a client. There’s nothing like diligent preparation to give you confidence when going into a Yoga class or a one-to-one session. Though, I always tell my students and clients that I’m not a doctor, and if they have any concerns they should consult their doctor.
“Is meditation scientifically proven to reduce stress?”
Yes. Yes. And more yeses. Countless research has also shown that meditation improves symptoms of stress-related conditions, including irritable bowel syndrome, post-traumatic stress disorder and fibromyalgia.
“What’s the number one reason to give meditation a go?”
I would say that “stress reduction” is the number one reason to give meditation a go. A build up of mental stress causes increased levels of the stress hormone cortisol. That increase causes a bunch of the harmful effects of stress such as: release of inflammation-promoting chemicals called cytokines. These effects can disrupt sleep, promote depression and anxiety, increase blood pressure and contribute to fatigue and cloudy thinking. The good news is that mindfulness meditation reduces the inflammation response caused by stress.
“Does meditation help with emotional health?”
Yes. Meditation helps practitioners cultivate a more balanced outlook on life (accepting the positive and negative as part of life). One scientific study followed 18 volunteers as they practiced meditation over three years. The study found that participants experienced long-term decreases in depression. Inflammatory chemicals called cytokines, which are released in response to stress, can affect mood, leading to depression. Meditation helps reduce depression by decreasing these inflammatory chemicals.
“Does meditation help with self awareness?”
Yes. Meditation helps to cultivate an understanding of yourself, and how you relate to those around you. Some forms of meditation increase your awareness of self-defeating thoughts. As you gain a deeper awareness through meditation, you’re able to say silently to yourself: “A ha, that was a self-defeating thought”, and then feed your mind a new thought (e.g. saying “I’m a bad friend” is a sweeping generalisation which may be true sometimes, but almost certainly not all the time. If you catch yourself saying something like that, you could replace the thought with: “Oops, I haven’t called Bob for a few months, I’ll call him now“.
“Will meditation help reduce feelings of loneliness?”
Yes. In one scientific study, 40 senior men and women who took a mindfulness meditation program experienced reduced feelings of loneliness, compared to a control group that had been placed on a wait list for the program.
“Does meditation help cultivate creative problem solving?”
Yes. Albert Einstein used to do Thought Experiments – which was a fancy way of saying he meditated.
“Does meditation help reduce memory loss?”
Yes. Slowing your brain waves down is a surefire way to improve attention, clarity of thinking, and keeping your mind youthful. Meditation can also help to improve memory in patients with dementia.
“Does meditation help reduce addictive behaviour?”
Yes. The discipline you cultivate with a meditation habit helps break dependencies by increasing your self-control and awareness of what triggers the addictive behaviour. No matter what your addiction is (drugs, alcohol, fatty or sweet foods) meditation helps redirect attention to a positive habit.
