How Yoga Postures Help the Mind

Yoga is hugely popular in the West right now. Amazingly, more yoga is practiced in America than India! Since there are so many great ways these days to be physically fit, let’s take a look at how practicing yoga postures can help your mental fitness. We start by practicing asanas, yoga postures, and not only do these yoga postures strengthen, open, and balance the body, they prepare the consciousness to become even, wise and increasingly intelligent. The mind matures and improves, just like the body. Because the practice of yoga postures clears imbalances from the body, the mind has more of an opportunity to observe itself. As the Yoga Sutras say, yoga is the cessation of the fluctuations in consciousness. So how does that translate to our everyday life? Let’s take the example of an impolite, unaware, or aggressive driver. Say you are driving your car and a small absentmindedness or selfishness on the part of another driver makes you angry. In the wink of an eye, you might honk your horn, curse, or drive aggressively yourself. What good does it do? Your serenity has been shattered. Do you feel better for it? Does blaming the other driver restore your peace of mind? Not really. An old image in yoga likens the mind to the surface of a lake, and the thoughts as waves on the surface which disturb the ability of the mind to reflect beauty and serenity. So if your lake is muddy and impure, yoga postures over time help to build it to be clean and pure. If your liver is sluggish with toxins, your brain will be impaired because the liver is not filtering the blood. If your nerves are disturbed, you feel the weakness of the mind. And you just might be that person steaming over an event on the road, carrying it home with you, bringing the toxin into your precious living space. In practicing yoga postures, we learn to intercept the reactions of the mind to events. This obviously requires speed and clarity of perception, an acute self-awareness, which is built and developed with practice. So the process of cognitive reflection, corrective reaction, reappraisal, and action is supported and enhanced through witnessing not only how to clarify the body’s alignment, but also watching and listening what the mind is generating. And then catching it sooner the next time it comes around. This is truly living in the present and experiencing the calm and serenity practicing yoga postures can bring to your life. It is the connection between mind and body that every practitioner searches for in their journey. Patanjali, who wrote down the Yoga Sutras over 2200 years ago, said: “Yoga is about stilling the turbulence of consciousness.” So, from the wisdom of the ages, comes the reminder to pause, take a breath before acting, do a little cognitive reflection, correct the reaction, reappraise where to be, and then act. And the action just might be letting go. Enjoy practicing your yoga postures and Namaste!