Hi Amoux, Shanti and Riptiz,
I appreciate all of your comments and advice, and thanks for the welcome!
I will keep the reiki self-healing separate from now on. It's hard to find time for what are in effect, to complementary albeit separate spiritual practices, however I think I will prioritise AYP and, if I have time, will do a reiki self-healing as well, would you agree? I think last thing at night is a good idea and will fit in fairly well with my lifestyle.
I have started the routine very recently, only a week ago. I started with Spinal Breathing and Deep Meditation, then added Mulabandha and Sambhavi after two days of practice. I know that is very quick, however I felt that given my experience of meditation and reiki that I was ready to adopt these practices. I have been doing daily Buddhist and Reiki meditations for eight months, for 30-60 minute sittings. During this time I have also experimented with Mulabandha and Sambhavi (without knowing they were called that!), and for a brief spell did some mantra meditation (which I didn't take to, so didn't stick with). The main flaw in my previous practices is a lack of consistency, I mixed up my routine on a daily basis prior to finding AYP. I have experienced the sensation of energy moving up my spine, and a tingling / heat at my third eye before starting AYP. Despite this experience, do you think I might be being too hasty in adopting the practice I have? I haven't actually adopted Samyama yet, I keep planning to do it after deep meditation but something (intuition?) stops me (usually time restraints, or a feeling that I have done enough and don't want to overdo it).
I have experienced overload in the past, when I was undertaking long daily meditations three times per day, plus daily reiki self-healing and elecro-acupuncture, whilst detoxing my diet and using crystals. This was evidently too much at once and resulted in me being run down and developing flu-like symptoms for a week (despite normally having a very strong immune system and never getting ill!)
You're right about scheduling in rest, I haven't been prioritising this, but have done since reading your post.
Thanks again for all the advice.
Wishing you peace and happiness,
Alan