5 mistakes you could be making when practising yoga and how to avoid them

Yoga as we see, experience and hear is more than just performing asanas, breathing or meditation. It is also about re-organising our systems, functions and organs. While we intend to unleash its potential for alignment and balance of our elements, we often make simple mistakes while performing the asanas.

“If we understand these key indicators and avoid making mistakes as much as possible, we can maximize the true potential of yoga in our life,” says Dr Mickey Mehta, award-winning health guru and corporate life coach. Here are five things to avoid while doing yoga.

1) Practicing Yoga After A Heavy Meal

It is recommended to only eat till 3/4th of the stomach is full. This is because if you overeat and if your metabolic activity is slow owing to any hormonal imbalance in the body, it leads to obesity, feeling of bloatedness, acidity and other health complications that could manifest into disease and discomfort. So ideally intensive workouts and yoga are not recommended post meals as it disturbs the digestive process and puts pressure on the cardiovascular system apart from disrupting your energy and making you feel inactive and dull. So always remember to take a minimum of 3 hours break after heavy meals and 2 hours break after light meals.

2) Warm-up
Very often the importance of warmups even before yoga is overlooked by many. n fact they do not realise how crucial it is to avert any injuries which may surface when one performs intensive yoga sans the warmups. So get into the groove of the compound body movements of twisting, turning, bending forward; backward; sideways, a little bit of gentle Bhujangaasana, Spot march, Pavanmuktasana, all very gently and at a submaximal level.

3) Judging And Comparing Yourself With Others
Every individual is unique and so are our ways of performing the postures in poetry. While performing asanas in groups there are times when you tend to start comparing your flexibility and agility with that of others and push yourself to become on par with them. In doing so you may not realise that you do more harm to yourself than you can ever imagine as you tend to ruin your posture and body's alignment. Follow your body's natural rhythm. Stop comparing yourself with others, focus on yourself, and feel yourself being in the present, here and now.

4) Incorrect Breathing
Always practise the postures in poetry with correct breathing patterns and under expert guidance only. Our body has its natural inhale-exhale rhythm, but many of us have forgotten the same due to which it is important to perform postures in poetry under the supervision of an expert yoga master.

So also, you need to focus on the breath while doing any movement. While twisting and forward bending you need to exhale, and while performing upward stretching always go with deep inhalation, sideward stretches can be done, either way, this should be followed flawlessly, and only then can one get in the natural rhythm of movements and breath. Remember your normal breathing should be like that of a balloon, while inhaling your stomach should bulge out and while exhaling your stomach should compress inwards.

5) Skipping Relaxation (Shavasana)
The last thing you do after an intensive posture in poetry is lie down in a shavasana state which is the state of absolute stillness, just like a still body. So while being in a shavasana state, make a conscious effort to relax every part of the muscle, and feel the air as you gently breathe in and out. Close your eyes throughout while in the shavasana pose. It not only relaxes you but also helps you feel relief from all the pains, stress, tensions and anxieties. If you miss this integral step of relaxation after yoga, you miss a vital part of the complete Yoga experience. So never miss it! Also remember that sometimes when you cannot lie down, you can simply sit with your back straight and consciously relax your complete body.