How Mindfulness and Yoga are Related
Yoga and mindfulness go together like peanut butter and jelly. Both lead to a calm, stable state of mind in which we experience less stress, anxiety and pain. Learn how mindfulness and yoga are related, and how they work together to improve our sense of health and wellbeing.
What is Mindfulness?
Mindfulness is present-moment awareness, absent of judgment or criticism. Mindfulness teaches us to let go of our past history and the stories we normally carry. Instead, when we’re mindful we’re present with reality just as it is. Through mindfulness, we learn to become less reactive to outside circumstances, our thoughts and our emotions. We still have thoughts and emotions, but we experience them from a calm and stable inner distance.
Yoga teaches the same thing. Through mindful movement, we calm and steady the mind. The thousands-year old Yoga Sutra teaches us the goal of yoga is to stop the constant churning of a ruminating mind. It says nothing about looking better in a swimsuit, although that’s a positive side-effect of daily practice.
Mindfulness and Yoga
Mindfulness is required for an effective yoga practice, and an effective yoga practice supports greater mindfulness. The two go hand in hand. Paying attention in yoga poses prevents injury by keeping you safely aligned. Mindfulness also helps you reach your yogic goals sooner, by focusing your mind on the task at hand.
When the mind is wandering, our energy is dispersed. Keeping our thoughts directed toward the poses themselves keeps our energy within our practice. Our practice becomes stronger, and each posture has a greater influence on body and mind.
If you’re having trouble finding balance in tree pose, for example, you might find the simple act of focusing on your breath is more effective than ‘trying harder.’ Stability in the body is directly related to stability in your mind. Change either one, and you’ll change the other.
How Instruction Increases Awareness
A yoga teacher’s job is to help guide you towards greater awareness so each yoga pose you do more profoundly changes your body and mind. A teacher may ask you to push yourself further, to hold each posture longer, or to think about the pose and your relationship to it in a new way.
At the most foundational level, the job of a yoga teacher is to help keep you safe. Proper alignment in yoga prevents injury by decreasing stress on your joints. At a deeper level, correct alignment increases the effectiveness of each pose. When the body is properly aligned in each posture, energy flows more freely. The mind becomes calm and clear.
When your yoga teacher corrects you, they’re doing their best to make sure you get the energetic benefit from the pose, without putting your body at risk.
How to Be More Mindful in Yoga
Even without a live teacher, there are ways to become more aware during yoga. At home or in a group class, improve your mindfulness in yoga by asking yourself the following three questions in every pose:
- What is my body doing right now?
- What is my breath like right now?
- Where is my mind right now?
Returning to present-moment mindfulness may mean paying closer attention to the body, the breath or the mind. Find the path that’s most accessible to you in the moment, and the others will change too.
At home, a yoga and fitness app such as FitAtom can provide you with real-time feedback and alignment cues. Mindfulness in yoga is an ongoing practice. It’s helpful to have both internal and external reminders to stay focused.
