Achieving a Flow State with an Asana Practice

by Nina

The Willows on the River by Claude Monet

In yesterday’s post The Benefits of Distraction: Tetris vs. Yoga, I wrote that yoga was a better alternative than Tetris (and other similar forms of distraction) for getting into a flow state to help with anxiety, worry, and other negative emotions. But how exactly do you use yoga for this purpose? With meditation and pranayama, obviously you just practice as you normally would. But how would you achieve this state with your asana practice? Can you just do any asana practice at all? Or, are there some basic requirements that you will need to meet?

Yeah, I’m sure you’ve figured out by now that you can’t just quickly run through a random set of poses while watching TV. But the basic requirements—as I figure it—are not too demanding:

1. Practice at the right level of challenge for you.

2. Practice mindfully, with a mental focus.

Let’s take a closer look at both of these requirements.

Practicing at the Right Level for You

There needs to be some level of challenge in your practice if you want to achieve flow. Ram put it this way:

“When one is engaged in an activity where the challenge matches the individual’s skill, that is, when a person's skills are fully involved in overcoming a challenging task.”

So, while there is a time and place for doing restorative yoga or just enjoying your favorite basic poses, a super comfy, easy practice won’t engage your mind completely. (The only caveat to this being that if you did those practices with your mind well focused on your breath, that would might also work. But, remember, the goal here is "distraction" and "flow" not just physical relaxation.)

On the other hand, if your practice is too challenging (something we don’t recommend doing anyway) that will lead more to frustration than flow.

In fact, in the study A better distraction: Exploring the benefits of flow during uncertain waiting periods. discussed briefly yesterday, they tested the subjects with three different levels of Tetris: very easy, very challenging, and just challenging enough. 

So, we’re basically in Goldilocks territory, with you yourself needing to figure out what kind of practice is “just right” for you. And you might have to do some testing, as Goldilocks did. But, if you haven’t read our post How to Stay Safe While Practicing Yoga, you should check that out. Because you definitely want to follow those guidelines to help you know when you should back off on the challenging poses or practices.

Finding a Mental Focus

While there are many benefits you can get from practicing yoga poses with a wandering mind or one that is distracted by music, radio, or TV, to get into a flow state you need to do your poses mindfully, which requires both concentration and practicing without self judgment. There are many different ways to practice asanas mindfully, so, again, like Goldilocks, you may need to experiment to see what engages your mind the best. And, in fact, you may need to change up what you do, as doing it the same way will probably create a routine quality that begins to bore you a bit.

For general information on practicing yoga mindfully, see Practicing Yoga Mindfully. In this post, you can learn about how Jon Kabat-Zinn recommends practicing yoga poses mindfully.

For information on how to practice breath awareness, which is always a good way to have a mental focus in just about any pose, see A Balm for the Soul: Practicing Simple Breath Awareness. If you're stuck in a rut with the way you currently practice breath awareness or if doing so makes you anxious, check out this post for ideas of other ways to do it.

For information on various ways to use your seven senses as a point of focus, see Coming to Your Senses in Yoga Poses. If you haven't read this post, you may be surprised to learn how many senses we actually have and what a variety of ways there are to use them as we practice.

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For information about Nina's upcoming book signings and other activities, see Nina's Workshops, Book Signings, and Books.

What is an Advanced Yoga Practice? (Rerun)

by Nina

Year-Old Snow and New Snow by Philip Amdal

A number of years ago, I encouraged a close friend of mine, M, to join me in taking Rodney Yee’s advanced class. Even though she had a muscular, athletic, and stiff body that made doing super bendy poses difficult, if not impossible, I knew that she understood how to take care of herself in class, that she would adapt the poses for her particular body type, and keep herself safe. So I wasn’t worried about the class being too hard for her. She was interested, however, she expressed some concerns about not being “advanced” enough for the class. I decided to discuss the matter with our teacher himself, feeling fairly sure of what he was going to say. But what he told me when I asked him if she was “advanced” not only took me by surprise but has stuck with me all these years, transforming my thinking about the asana practice in general. What he said was this:

“Of course, she’s advanced enough. M does yoga more mindfully than any student I’ve ever seen.”

And here I’d been thinking that being advanced meant being capable of doing difficult poses, like 10 minute headstands or extreme backbends, at some level or another! But doing yoga “mindfully”—now, there was goal we could pursue for our lifetimes. No matter our level of physical capacity was, we would always have the the ability to go deeper and deeper into the practice.

I’m thinking about this today because I’m helping a new friend adapt her practice to allow her to heal from an ongoing injury. It’s taken her a long time to even be ready to temporarily give up certain poses and ways of practicing, because she felt such regrets about excluding poses from her practice that she used to be able to do with such great enjoyment. But as Baxter mentioned in his post on Wristful Wrists: How to Keep Your Wrists Safe, sometimes rest is the best way to heal from an injury. So being willing to adopt mindfulness as a goal in the practice rather than achievement is a necessary element in being able to heal from an injury.

People who are aging may find themselves in a similar position, not necessarily due to injury but simply due to the physical changes that come along with aging. To be honest, I used to have what I sometimes call a “semi-fancy” yoga practice. But in the last few years, I developed arthritis in my right hip that makes it impossible to do seated poses that involve a lot of external rotation. Lotus and half lotus are now impossible for me, and seated forward bends and twists that require certain leg positions are painful and difficult. And I need props in many of the standing poses now. Still there is no question I consider my practice more advanced these days than it was in the years when I regularly took the East Bay’s most “advanced” yoga class.


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For information about Nina's upcoming book signings and other activities, see Nina's Workshops, Book Signings, and Books.

A "Light" Practice for Summer

by Jill

Two Bees in a Thistle
by Heidi Santschi of Heidi Santschi Garden Design

Since it's summer where I live I'd like to stay a little “light.” So, I thought I would share a question that has come up over the past months several times and see if it resonates or might be something you can play around with in your heart, mind, and body—gently and “lightly.”

The question I've been asked by others recently is about “advanced practices,” especially as they might be embodied or focused somatically in the body. But right away, this brings up another question of what “advanced” is. This is interesting on many levels, especially with regards towards what many of us believe: that to be advanced means to do something more complex and complicated.

As I have come to understand practice over the 30 plus years of exploration and inquiry is that the more simple and unadorned the practice is the more difficult it might be to actually do it. It's not easy to let go, allow, be with, sit in, notice, or turn towards or away by choice. These words and (ancient) gracious instructions point toward having and or developing a restful and at ease mind, not one that is hardened against thoughts or trying to stop the mind from thinking (it won't).

It takes repeated practice to rest the mind and provide the mind with an easeful body, too—one that is relaxed yet stable and upright, soft yet not falling apart, and not rigid or contracted,. This is much easier said than realized or felt or embodied. The words and phrases can glide or guide us into or toward an experience, but they are really just the finger pointing at the moo. We have to experience the moon for ourselves.

It's easy and often fun to talk about practice, discuss it, analyze it, think about it, promise to do it tomorrow, or more regularly. But do we actually practice? Maybe yes and sometimes not. This isn't cause for critical appraisal, but it is an opportunity to start where we are and do something as simple, elegant, and yet as challenging to remember to do what we have been guided towards, reminded about. For instance, can you notice how your body is responding as you are reading these words. What are the sensations arising as you are reading? Can you find your breath and maintain awareness of it while reading or even walking or watching the news?

Feeling your feet touching the earth can be a lifelong practice and one I never tire of, which challenges me to stay awake and notice where I am at any given time. You can notice the space between your thoughts not just the thoughts themselves and maybe even relax in that space between. Or you can listen to what fills the silence of the night sky, feel a breeze on your skin, really taste a piece of watermelon, or linger in the sensations of receiving or giving a kiss in the warmth of the sun.

Some of the greatest teachings I've ever received have been from the fortunate opportunities I've had to hang around with the most incredible Buddhist teachers and just laugh and be lovingly laughed with. I've been metaphorically held with such sweet lightness it began to rub off on me—slowly, slowly.

It's summer now in the Northern Hemisphere—what we've waited for all winter—so enjoy the light lasting a little longer and the nights being warmer. And allow yourself to be lighter, freer, and easier. This could be one of the most advanced practices you'll try and at the very least will train your heart, mind, and body to stay awake with more gentility and ease of being. This spaciousness and lightness of being could bring you some great joy if you allow it to.

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Follow Jill Satterfield on Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram. For information about Jill's classes, workshops, and retreats, see Jill's Classes, Workshops, and Retreats and School for Compassionate Action, and for information about Jill and Vajra Yoga jillsatterfield.org.

Relieving Pain Mindfully

by Ram

Landscape with Red Spots by Wassily Kandinsky

Pain is defined as “an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage” and serves as the body’s inherent protective mechanism to: 

1. Motivate the individual to pull out from a damaging situation and prevent further damage to the tissue 
2. Allow the damaged tissue to rest and begin the healing process
3. Avoid similar encounters. 

Thus, pain in a true sense is beneficial when, for example, your back sustains a blow and the injured tissues need care and protection. Individuals who suffer from congenital insensitivity to the pain response are easily injured and most of them die at an early age.

The phenomenon of pain is generally transient and recedes when the stimulus is removed or the damaged tissue has healed. However, there are certain abnormal pathological conditions where pain is a constant feature and persists for a long time. This is chronic pain that lasts beyond the expected period of healing. Unfortunately, chronic pain brings with it other health issues, including constant fear, worry, anxiety, depression, and memory deficits. Furthermore, when these pain signals traverse through certain areas of the brain, they stimulate a set of autonomic responses resulting in increased heart rate and blood pressure, rapid breathing, and sweating. It is unclear if chronic pain triggers these co-morbidities, or vice versa. 

The entire process—starting from the initial stimulus to the actual pain response and the waning of the pain —involves several specialized receptors, neurochemicals, and transmission of the pain information through specialized channels. The end result is that the damaged area gets flooded by natural opioid-like compounds that have an immediate analgesic effect, making painful accidents much more tolerable. The body’s system of pain control for injuries involves the release of natural opioid compounds, such as enkephalins and endorphins, that bind receptors in the spinal cord to suppress the transmission of pain signals to the brain. But the body cannot produce enough natural opioids to stop severe or chronic pain nor can it produce enough to cause an overdose. Thus, severe or chronic pain will require the incorporation of exogenous opioids. 

Exogeneous opioids are substances that act on the body’s own opioid receptors to produce analgesic/numbing effects and hence are primarily used for pain relief, including anesthesia. Opioids are indicated for the relief of mild to severe pain, and are effective for the treatment of acute pain (such as pain following surgery). For immediate relief of moderate to severe acute pain opioids are frequently the treatment of choice due to their rapid onset, efficacy, and reduced risk of dependence. Opioids are also prescribed in palliative care to help with the severe, chronic, disabling pain that may occur in some terminal conditions, such as cancer, and degenerative conditions, such as rheumatoid arthritis and fibromyalgia. This practice has now led to a new and growing problem with addiction and misuse of opioids. It is estimated that an average of 125 deaths from opioid overdoses occurs per day in the United States. Between July 2016 and September 2017, hospitalizations from opioid overdoses jumped 30 percent nationwide. Data strongly suggest that the rapid rise in opioid addiction, overdose, and death in the last 20 years is largely driven by the increase in prescription of synthetic opioids for pain. As the crisis worsens, pain management options are desperately needed that don’t involve opioids. 

The good news is that there are several studies that report the benefits of yoga in curbing pain. On our blog, we discussed extensively how yoga provides several pain reduction techniques (see How Yoga Helps with Pain and Techniques for Managing Pain with Yoga). In addition to asanas, meditation also improves pain as the individual starts to relax. Research studies show that meditation techniques, including breath awareness, mantra repetition, and visualization can actually improve pain tolerance. Thanks to Jon Kabat-Zinn’s pioneering work in the 1980s, when he developed Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), mindfulness meditation has now demonstrated promise for managing chronic pain. 

Mindfulness meditation has been shown in clinical trials to reduce chronic pain significantly. Accomplished meditators can reduce it by over 90 percent. An article published a year ago “Mindfulness Meditation for Chronic Pain: Systematic-Review and Meta-analysis” found that mindfulness meditation is associated with a decrease in chronic pain compared to all types of controls in 30 randomized trials. Furthermore, mindfulness meditation in pain patients showed promising outcomes on chronic pain-associated health issues, including mood disturbance, anxiety, and depression. These studies conclude that a natural therapeutic approach for chronic pain management, such as mindfulness meditation, would likely be welcomed by patients suffering from acute/chronic pain.

The predominant question among researchers is how mindfulness curbs pain response physiologically. Imaging studies show that mindfulness soothes the brain patterns underlying pain and, over time, these changes take root and alter the structure of the brain itself, so that patients no longer feel pain with the same intensity. Mindfulness pacifies the neural circuits that amplify the pain stimulus. In effect, mindfulness turns down the pain intensity. In addition, mindfulness was more effective at reducing pain-associated inflammatory response that again brings down pain intensity. As the pain ebbs, any anxiety, stress, and/or depression that the individual experiences begins to melt away, the body relaxes, and healing gradually takes over. Recent studies provide further evidence that mindfulness meditation engages mechanisms that are distinct from the opioid and placebo pathways to reduce pain. This is critically important to the millions of patients with that are seeking a non-opioid pain therapy!

Mindfulness can help you reshape your relationship with mental and physical pain. See The Pain of Pain: The Second Arrow and mindful.org to learn more.


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