The Art of Yoga and Meditation: Difficulty of Poses and Correlation with Mental State

This week the yoga class increased in difficulty, the poses required more flexibility, strength, and balance. Two of such poses are virabhadrasana 3, or warrior 3, and the half lotus tree pose. Both of these poses require large amount of focus, balance, and strength, especially since only one leg is on the ground for these poses. Another difficult pose has been pigeon pose, this pose is all about how flexible your hips are. Now of course when the difficulty of something increases it demands more attention, with these poses I find myself even forgetting to breathe correctly either due to the struggle of keeping my balance or keeping my hips unlocked. When I finish these poses I feel accomplished and relaxed. There is definitely a strong correlation between, self confidence and happiness with how well you performance while exercising. Often times with a traditional exercise the amount of mental demand is quite a bit lower than the physical demand, yoga poses like the afore mentioned ones require an equal amount of physical demand and mental demand. Poses that are a struggle to do seem to be the best ones for taking your mind off of any stress or concerns you have, because there is simply no room to think about them. With each yoga class that I attend I feel more relaxed and in the moment when the session ends than the previous class most likely due to the difficulty of the poses I have completed.