Need help with Concentraion and Focus?

Practicing yoga is an excellent way to quiet the mind and improve concentration.

A recent study from the University of Illinois showed that practicing yoga for 20 minutes could actually improve brain function. The study, which had 30 people perform two tasks involving identifying shapes on a computer screen, found that yoga helped the subjects complete the exercises more than aerobic exercise or no exercise.

Here are a few poses and techniques to try whenever you need to re-center and re-focus:

Prayer Pose (hands to heart center): This variation of Tadasana is a great way to get in touch with your body and breath before moving on to other asanas.

To do the pose, stand up straight with your feet together or hips width apart, toes pointing straight ahead. Bring your hands to heart center in the Namaste position (Anjali Mudra). Check that your weight is evenly distributed through all four corners of your feet, that your calves and quads are engaged, your pelvis is in a neutral position, and your shoulders are relaxed. Breathe deeply through the nose, noticing any sensations in the body or breath.

Eagle Pose (Garudasana): That balancing postures can help with concentration seems obvious, but Eagle Pose is especially beneficial for creating a strong focus. In fact, the pose gets its name from the Hindu god Garuda, known for his power, strength and focus.

To do the pose, stand with your feet together and hands on your hips, and find a steady focal point in front of you. Bend your knees slightly, lift your right leg, and cross it over your left thigh. Try to hook your right foot behind your left calf. Then, release your hands from your hips and bring them out straight in front of you. Cross your arms in front of you, left over the right, and bend your elbows. Wrap your arms around each other and try to bring your palms together. Keep your back straight and gaze focused like an eagle as you breathe deeply through the nose.
     

Warrior 2 (Virabhadrasana 2): The posture requires your full body to be engaged, and your gaze, or ‘drishti,’ to be fixed on one place.

To do the pose, stand with your legs about 3-4 feet apart. Stretch your arms out away from you, so they’re parallel to the floor, hands active, and palms facing down. Turn your right foot so that it’s pointed toward the top of your mat, and your left foot so it's angled inward very slightly. Bend your right knee and shift it forward so it’s over your right ankle. Turn your head to the right, and place your gaze on your right middle finger. Keep your torso facing the side (not front) of your mat. Breathe.

Crow or Crane Pose (Bakasana): Arm balances are also excellent for cultivating focus and concentration, and crow pose is a great one to start with.

Here's an example of Crow Pose, and also a great example that yoga truly has no age! :)

To do this pose, start with your feet hips width apart in a squatting position, or for more experienced practitioners, in a forward bend. Place your hands on the floor, about 1 foot in front of your feet, shoulder-width apart, with your fingers spread. Fix your gaze on a point on the floor in front of you. Then, bring your knees to your armpits or triceps and slowly begin to shift your weight forward, lifting one foot off the ground, and then the other. Breathe deeply, staying focused.

Nadi Shoddana Pranayama (Alternate Nostril Breathing): Five minutes of Nadi Shoddana Pranayama always helps me reach a more calm, clear, and focused state of mind. In yoga therapy, this breathing practice is sometimes called a ‘cure all,’ as it can boost your energy when you’re feeling sluggish, as well as relax and center you when you’re feeling anxious or wound up.

To practice Nadi Shoddana, start by finding a relaxed, comfortable, seated position. Begin by pressing your right thumb against your right nostril and inhale deeply through your left nostril. At the end of your inhalation, close off the left nostril with the ring finger, then exhale through the right nostril. Continue with this pattern, inhaling through the right nostril, closing it off with the right thumb, and exhaling through the left nostril. Practice for at least 3 minutes. When you finish, take some time to allow your breath to return to normal, noticing the changes in your breath and mind.
Note: As you develop in your practice, you can try matching the length of the inhale and exhale by counting or inhaling to a count of 4 or 5, and then doubling the length of the exhale.

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Why Meditate?

Why Should you Meditate?

I'm going to list an amazing list of benefits of mediation, and these are not even ALL of them. You can start with only 5 minutes per day, sitting in silence (set timer on your phone) and it can be in silence or to relaxing music to start with.

Physiological benefits:
1- It lowers oxygen consumption.
2- It decreases respiratory rate.
3- It increases blood flow and slows the heart rate.
4- Increases exercise tolerance.
5- Leads to a deeper level of physical relaxation.
6- Good for people with high blood pressure.
7- Reduces anxiety attacks by lowering the levels of blood lactate.
8- Decreases muscle tension
9- Helps in chronic diseases like allergies, arthritis etc.
10- Reduces Pre-menstrual Syndrome symptoms.
11- Helps in post-operative healing.
12- Enhances the immune system.
13- Reduces activity of viruses and emotional distress
14- Enhances energy, strength and vigour.
15- Helps with weight loss
16- Reduction of free radicals, less tissue damage
17- Higher skin resistance
18- Drop in cholesterol levels, lowers risk of cardiovascular disease.
19- Improved flow of air to the lungs resulting in easier breathing.
20- Decreases the aging process.
21- Higher levels of DHEAS (Dehydroepiandrosterone)
22- prevented, slowed or controlled pain of chronic diseases
23- Makes you sweat less
24- Cure headaches & migraines
25- Greater Orderliness of Brain Functioning
26- Reduced Need for Medical Care
27- Less energy wasted
28- More inclined to sports, activities
29- Significant relief from asthma
30- improved performance in athletic events
31- Normalizes to your ideal weight
32- harmonizes our endocrine system
33- relaxes our nervous system
34- produce lasting beneficial changes in brain electrical activity
35- Cure infertility (the stresses of infertility can interfere with the release of hormones that regulate ovulation).
36- Helps in building sexual energy & desire
Psychological benefits:
36- Builds self-confidence.
37- Increases serotonin level, influences mood and behaviour.
38- Resolve phobias & fears
39- Helps control own thoughts
40- Helps with focus & concentration
41- Increase creativity
42- Increased brain wave coherence.
43- Improved learning ability and memory.
44- Increased feelings of vitality and rejuvenation.
45- Increased emotional stability.
46- improved relationships
47- Mind ages at slower rate
48- Easier to remove bad habits
49- Develops intuition
50- Increased Productivity
51- Improved relations at home & at work
52- Able to see the larger picture in a given situation
53- Helps ignore petty issues
54- Increased ability to solve complex problems
55- Purifies your character
56- Develop will power
57- greater communication between the two brain hemispheres
58- react more quickly and more effectively to a stressful event.
59- increases one’s perceptual ability and motor performance
60- higher intelligence growth rate
61- Increased job satisfaction
62- increase in the capacity for intimate contact with loved ones
63- decrease in potential mental illness
64- Better, more sociable behaviour
65- Less aggressiveness
66- Helps in quitting smoking, alcohol addiction
67- Reduces need and dependency on drugs, pills & pharmaceuticals
68- Need less sleep to recover from sleep deprivation
69- Require less time to fall asleep, helps cure insomnia
70- Increases sense of responsibility
71- Reduces road rage
72- Decrease in restless thinking
73- Decreased tendency to worry
74- Increases listening skills and empathy
75- Helps make more accurate judgements
76- Greater tolerance
77- Gives composure to act in considered & constructive ways
78- Grows a stable, more balanced personality
79- Develops emotional maturity
Spiritual benefits:
80- Helps keep things in perspective
81- Provides peace of mind, happiness
82- Helps you discover your purpose
83- Increased self-actualization.
84- Increased compassion
85- Growing wisdom
86- Deeper understanding of yourself and others
87- Brings body, mind, spirit in harmony
88- Deeper Level of spiritual relaxation
89- Increased acceptance of oneself
90- helps learn forgiveness
91- Changes attitude toward life
92- Creates a deeper relationship with your God
93- Attain enlightenment
94- greater inner-directedness
95- Helps living in the present moment
96- Creates a widening, deepening capacity for love
97- Discovery of the power and consciousness beyond the ego
98- Experience an inner sense of “Assurance or Knowingness”
99- Experience a sense of “Oneness”
100- Increases the synchronicity in your life

Meditation is also completely FREE! It requires no special equipment, and is not complicated to learn. It can be practiced anywhere, at any given moment, and it is not time consuming (building up to 15-20 min. per day is good). Best of all, meditation has NO negative side effects.

Bottom line, there is nothing but positive to be gained from it! With such a huge list of benefits, the question you should ask yourself is, “why am I not meditating yet?”

Make sure you meditate, there are quite simply too many positives to just ignore it. Even if you start with just 5 minutes, and add to it as time goes. Feel free to set your timer on your cell phone, so you don't have to think about time.

Here's a helpful video "Meditate in a Moment"

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Are you being present?

I went to the Adele Concert in St. Paul, MN last week, and the person in front of me reminded me, that we probably ALL need to work on being present. Some more than others lol

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Is Corpse Pose creepy?

Corpse Pose: Sounds kind of creepy, right? Well, if you haven't practiced yoga already, although it can be harder in the beginning, you'll come to love this pose.

The final pose of any yoga class, (or if you take my class, also the beginning :) ), is one of deep restoration: Corpse Pose, also called Final Relaxation Pose. Its Sanskrit name, “Savasana” (shah-VAHS-uh-nuh), comes from two words. The first is “Sava” (meaning “corpse”), and the second is “asana” (meaning “pose”). Savasana implies a depth of release that goes beyond simple relaxation. This resting pose takes your yoga practice to a place where you can completely let go. Though it may seem like an easy pose, Savasana can actually be very tough to learn and practice well. The great yoga masters K. Pattabhi Jois and B.K.S. Iyengar even called Savasana the most difficult of all yoga poses. For many students, the ability to lie completely still — like a corpse — while being both fully aware of and unattached from the present moment takes much practice and patience. Unlike active, moving, and physically demanding poses, Savasana requires a conscious decision to release the mental chatter and surrender fully into a state of presence.huu

The Most Important Pose in Yoga
Many, if not most, yoga traditions and yoga teachers regard Savasana as the single most important pose of your practice. It allows your body time to process the information and benefits received from the poses (“asanas”) and breathing exercises (“pranayama”). The entire class/practice is preparing your body, for Savasana. The benefits of Savasana are much more than just physical — this pose enhances and renews the body, mind, and spirit.

Savasana is not nap time — you don’t actually fall asleep when practicing it (or you should try not to). Instead, the idea is to remain present and aware for the complete duration of the pose. Just like everything else in Yoga, this is a constant, and continuous "practice". Doing so allows the mental chatter to settle, bringing your awareness even deeper into your  highest state of consciousness. As you go deeper, you can begin to release the tangled knots of patterns (“samskaras”), emotions, and ideas that unconsciously guide your life.

Through the process of practicing Savasana, you can begin to view your life with more clarity and new awareness. The rejuvenating and mind-clearing aspects of Savasana provide you with the tools to deal with stress and emotions in your life off the mat.

In addition to the mind-body benefits, Savasana is also a time during your practice when you can connect with your peaceful, innermost self. The word “yoga” is often translated as “union,” referring to the connection between your mind, body, and spirit. When you settle into Savasana and become aware of this connection, you are truly practicing yoga.

Just a few of the benefits of Savasana:

⦁ Heightened self-confidence⦁ Clear-headedness and a sense of focus ⦁ Improved concentration and memory ⦁ Increased productivity ⦁ Increased overall energy levels ⦁ Relief from anxiety and panic attacks ⦁ Reduced nervous tension ⦁ Relief from fatigue and insomnia ⦁ Reduced occurrence of headaches The physical response can further result in:⦁ Decreased metabolic rate⦁ Decreased muscle tension ⦁ Slowed rate of respiration ⦁ A decreased heart rate ⦁ Lowered blood pressure

Savasana is where people are most likely to experience the meaning of yoga… You lie there and look dead, but as you relax and sink into the feeling of the energy that is being you, it literally feels like you come to life again.

"Who Am I?"

Is "Who am I?" a clear enough question for our self study (svadhyaya)?

We could also get a little more specific and add:

What am I passionate about?

How do I affect other people?

What feels good (in the deepest sense of those words)?

What feels bad?

What is the impact I will have made in this world after I leave it?

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Are you truly true?

Satya is the Sanskrit word for truth. It also refers to being truthful in one's thought, speech and action. In Yoga, Satya is one of five Yamas, the restraint from falsehood and distortion of reality in one's expressions and actions.

Even when we are practicing yoga, we can easily confuse observation and judgment. In the yoga studio, for example, it is not uncommon to have judgments about a pose that we find unpleasant. When our teacher suggests we try such a pose, one of the following judgments may pass through our mind. First, we might say to ourselves, “This pose does not do anything useful” (judging the pose). Or we may inwardly judge the teacher. Finally, and probably most commonly, we think, “What’s wrong with me that I cannot do this pose?” (judging ourselves).

When we use speech that expresses judgment, we limit ourselves and others. In this case, we limit ourselves by putting the pose, the teacher, or ourselves in a box, a box labeled “bad.” We lose track of the fact that it is not the pose which is bad, nor the teacher, nor us. Rather, “bad” is an interpretation that arises within us. Whether we speak them out loud or silently, such judgments are not Satya.

An alternative way to speak to ourselves about a difficult pose is to say, “I am having trouble with this pose right now.” When we use speech this way, whether silently or out loud, a very different atmosphere for learning is created. To make the observation that I am having trouble right now makes no statement at all about the pose itself, the teacher, or our worth as a student. Neither does it ordain that things will not change. When we use the language of observation, we give ourselves the space and freedom to change right now or at any point in the future.

Be kind to all, including yourself, (with your internal voice).

www.stacy.yoga