Yoga Tip: Use balancing postures to sharpen your focus and mental clarity.
An article I recently read struck a chord with me.
It pointed out how our mind is one of the resources we rely on most to navigate our life and possibly the one we take most for granted.
“If you think about it you’ll realize that it’s true. Your mind is your greatest asset.”
We use it for our intelligence, imagination, creativity and reasoning. When it is gets foggy or overwhelmed and unclear it’s hard to make decisions, remember things or have the mental capacity to complete projects.
Do you feel like your head struggles sometimes? That your memory recall is slow or your intuition can’t be found?
I know I do.
It’s important to maintain and improve mental clarity – why?
- Job performance – our livelihood depends on how we show up and our focus on the job.
- Information retention – I don’t believe that as we age our minds get less sharp…I believe we lose the ability to retain information because we aren’t focused on our “focus” muscles. Information recall and retention are directly related to how we assimilate information. Mental alertness and clarity is key.
- Complex problem solving – reasoning and day to day decision making is easier when our minds are sharp, clear, and tuned in.
- Having direction and purpose in life – ahhh…this is my favorite and often we overlook the value of having direction and purpose in life. Then in our 40’s we look at where we are and say “What am I doing here?”
And the list goes on…
A great way to increase mental clarity is through meditation and exercise. Yoga combines the two to create excellent clarity in the mind. When we are focused completely on holding balance in a pose the mind becomes sharp, all other thoughts are removed giving the mind clear focus.
When I began to practice yoga back in 2000 I noticed within a few weeks that I was experiencing greater focus, clarity and productivity at work. I still use yoga today as a vehicle to keep my mind sharp, focused and vibrant.
A great pose to practice clarity of mind is Virabhadrasana 3 (Warrior 3) pose.
