Ace-Yoga

How to calm your mind during yoga practice

Learn to switch off, stop thinking about your to-do list and get the most out of your yoga class, with advice from top yoga teacher Jacqueline May Lysycia.

Learn to switch off, stop thinking about your to-do list and get the most out of your yoga class, with advice from top yoga teacher Jacqueline May Lysycia.

Learn to switch off, stop thinking about your to-do list and get the most out of your yoga class, with advice from top yoga teacher Jacqueline May Lysycia.

It’s important to understand the true nature of the mind is to be erratic and volatile. It jumps from thought to thought. We can also agree that the power of the mind’s intelligence, as in thoughts, wishful thinking, speculation and assumption, is very strong and often based upon hearsay, gossip or illusion.

In the practice of yoga we are grounding the intelligence of this powerful and erratic mind in the intelligence of the human body. This means we can take the thinking mechanism (mind) and use concentration practices on retraining the body to move, breathe, lengthen and strengthen with integrity, thus re-training the habitual erratic nature of the mind to calm down and rest.

Your body likes to rest, but so does your mind. The fact that it is not easy for the mind to rest does not mean it does not benefit from resting. We only have to look at the skin of someone who’s been meditating for a while to see the clear benefits.

How do we rest the mind?

By becoming aware of its nature. To do that is to become very intimate with whatever you are doing within your practice at that given time. So if you are doing breathing exercises then really ‘feel’ the sensations being generated in your body at the time of practising. It generally means we need to be more present with our practice because if we are still allowing the mind to get in the way, then we are not present nor feeling the sensations actually happening at that moment of practice.

If we are on the yoga mat or meditation cushion with this limited awareness of what is actually happening, then can you imagine the poor level of awareness we have moving through our day when we have to interact with other bodies and worse still other minds! Slow down, watch your jumpy mind and practice concentration techniques to focus on one thing only.

Article by

Jacqueline May Lysycia

Top international yoga teacher

Discover more

Article by

Jacqueline May Lysycia

Top international yoga teacher

Discover more