Yoga routines for concentration/focus

Yoga Discussion General Yoga
#1

Hello all,

I’m new to this forum, so I hope I’m in the right place.

I want to know yoga routines to improve concentration and focus. To be precise, I don’t want postures and all, but rather a routine that could be performed every day. I do yoga daily, but it’s basic(surya namaskar, pranayama, bastrika) and I have a feeling that these are not enough to improve my concentration and focus. I tried looking on the net, but as always lost in loads of information. So, I came here to seek the advice of the experienced gurus.

Thanks in advance,

#2

are you asking for a technique? I would think meditation, pranayam, tratak should be good for concentration… would you mind to share what kind of concentration r u trying to achieve? is it work-related or yoga-related or something else?

#3

Thanks for your reply. I’m looking for something to incorporate in my routine. I do suryanamaskaras, pranayama and bastrika daily. I would like a techinique or so to add to this routine. Personally I find meditation hard to do, as I can’t do it for more than a couple of minutes. So, anything else would be great to know.

#4

I agree with CityMonk - try to practice trataka. Do you have a teacher you can teach you this? Or you may be able to find a recording you can use to go through the practice at home before bed, and it will definitely help you to increase your focus.

Can you tell us though, what is your greatest obstacle to focus? Is it that you are tired or bored? Or are you too easily distracted? What happens after a few minutes of meditation that makes you stop?

#5

I get distracted easily. This is turning out to be a big problem for me. I work with computer, so the result of distraction just blows when I work. After a couple of minutes into meditation, I can no longer hold my thoughts back. Something keeps popping up in my brain(and some of them really unrelated, like things happened months ago!). I’m beginning to think that it’s almost impossible to keep my mind still. My work is not stressful for most of the time. But when I’m under pressure, I get stressed out easily. I thought this might be because I’m not stressed most of the time and so I’m not habituated to it. I’m not sure how well this will abide to my future(I just started working)! And hence the effort to regain focus and concentration.

Thanks for the suggestion on trantak. I will try this one.

I don’t have a teacher, but I did a lot of courses in yoga over the years. So, I guess I’m a little aware of things I can do by my self. Do you think trantak would need supervision?

#6

Trataka does not need supervision to practice but I find that having it initially taught to me by a great teacher has given me a very solid understanding of it. You could also try to start chanting a simple mantra out loud while doing your meditation, or maybe try to follow along with chanting from an mp3, for 10-20 minutes a day. You could start with a small mantra and repeat it again and again, something you like. Once you are familiar with it, try to chant it mentally when you are going to work, showering, or even when you are at work. If you mind becomes familiar with it, it will start to turn to that same place when it tends to get distracted. One of my teachers once said, ‘the mind is like a puppy, prancing around and knocking over things. It must be trained by bringing it back, over and over, and making it sit. Whatever means we can find to do this, we should try’. Trataka with candle-gazing, and mantra repetition make for very excellent sources of things to concentrate on.

Personally, I recite the yoga-sutra-s over and over again, and occasionally vedic chanting. I notice that if I play these things on my ipod while I am working, that they continue to play in my head for hours and hours after they have finished, and I am able to do my regular repetitive work with little distraction.

#7

Don’t know if this would help but perhaps a guided meditation CD will keep you more engaged than doing it on your own? I don’t have any to recommend though.

Yoga Journal Yoga for Well-Being DVD has a segment called Mental Clarity.

#8

I recommend you get this book: http://www.amazon.com/Darshan-Yogic-Upanishadic-Practices-Concentration-Visualization/dp/8186336303

There are dozens upon dozen concentration techniques and exercises in this book from beginner to advanced.

Meanwhile, I will recommend a few concentration exercises for you:

Candle gazing: In a dark room, gaze at the flame of a candle, at about arms length from you and eye level,your eyes open without blinking. Maintain this gaze until your eyes begin to water and you feel like closing them. When your eyes are closed the after image of the flame will appear and float around in the darkess behind your eye, try to maintain this image in the centre i.e., fix it one place. When and if you lose the image, just open your eyes and gaze at the candle again until they start to water, and repeat.

In the beginning you will find it hard to hold the image still, but with practice you will be able to keep it still in the centre.

You can also do this exercise by gazing at a picture or a black dot on a white wall(candle works best)

Third eye gazing: This exercise is simple and very powerful. Close your eyes and bring your focus to your brow centre(in between your eyebrows on your forehead) and then roll your eyes up, as if you are trying to look at your brow centre. Maintain this gaze indefinitely.

If you feel like too much tension is building up, then relax the gaze a little.

Object Visualization: Close your eyes. Now try to think of some object, usually something like a flower works best. If it is a rose, try to recreate the image of a rose in your minds eye and make it as vivid as possible.

In the beginning you will find it difficult to create the image, but with practice you will come to the point where you will be able to see the rose very vividly. It helps to practice looking at a real rose before hand, to get an idea of what a rose looks like.
This practice can also be done with the image of a deity, this works best if you are religious.

If you practice any of the above techniques or the ones from the book I recommended regularly, your concentration will definitely improve.

#9

[QUOTE=ozyman;69045]Hello all,

I’m new to this forum, so I hope I’m in the right place.

I want to know yoga routines to improve concentration and focus. To be precise, I don’t want postures and all, but rather a routine that could be performed every day. I do yoga daily, but it’s basic(surya namaskar, pranayama, bastrika) and I have a feeling that these are not enough to improve my concentration and focus. I tried looking on the net, but as always lost in loads of information. So, I came here to seek the advice of the experienced gurus.

Thanks in advance,[/QUOTE]

First, a dedicated daily practice is far more significant than its respective complexity. In other words a student who develops or has developed the discipline to practice each day, that student has a greater opportunity for growth than the student who does a very involved practice for little to no reason, three times per week.

Second, the tools of Yoga are not meant to be “performed” despite what we see in pop culture and some “flavors” of asana practice put forth by those who’ve missed or ignored yoga’s larger picture for gain outside the framework of svadharma (their soul’s purpose). But you may have selected that word for lack of another.

Third, you don’t really offer much relationship when you’re not forthcoming about the nature of you and your practice. For example, I have no idea if you’ve been doing pranayama for ten days or ten years. And it makes a monumental difference. Beginning students (first 3-5 years) are best served by gentle pranayama. Furthermore, pranayama must have foundational elements in order to move on (safely) to more “active” methodologies.

Fourth, it is not a matter of something being “enough” to improve concentration (again this is a perspective of quantity instead of quality). It is a matter of tools that are efficacious for the student based on their living, experiences, and work in this lifetime. Perhaps adding to the current stuff will abate the anxiety. It is just more likely that the current stuff isn’t as effective as some other stuff. I base this not on you but on what I’ve learned through my own practice and living, my studies, and my students. So it’s not at all personal and I trust you’ll take it in the guiding way it is intended.

The nature of Yoga, the ~8,500 year-old practices, do not favor transmission only through the written word (nor DVD’s and the Internet). A sound teacher is best. We all have furtive minds that are inherently focused but, as a result of the society we’ve created, now are discombobulated. Everything within the walls of yoga is done with the purpose of focusing and concentrating the mind (seeing clearly and seeing only one thing), except for meditation which requires a still mind.

Hope this helps in some ways.

gordon

#10

I’m wondering how you do your surya namaskar. Do you coordinate your movement with ujjayi breathing? Do you incorporate bandha and drishti? If not, then those are things you can incorporate into your existing practice that should help. See http://www.ashtangayoga.info/practice/asana-vinyasa-series/surya-namaskara-a-sun-salutation/opt/vinyasa/

Also any kind of activity that you enjoy doing can be an aid to developing concentration.

#11

You want to improve concentration
You are doing some Yoga practice
You want a routine, not necessarily a technique

For real results, you need real courage. You need to go to the basics.

What prevents concentration and divert your attention in short bursts is your mind. Though it is mind’s intrinsic quality to flit, it uses thoughts as triggers and memory as the ammunition. This needs to be first seen squarely.

It is futile to expect any technique to correct your lack of concentration without any change in your mind-habits, thought process and memory baggage. Techniques will help, not cure. Besides, unless they are directly targeted the mind-thoughts-memory trio will make sure that your practice will not be regular. They will also convince you that the techniques were bad and need to keep looking for new ones all the time.

There is a way. Keep a journal. Everytime there is diversion that disturbs concentration, stop the thoughts. Catch the thread, trace it back to look for what weakness, what desire, what memory caused it. Soon you will have a list of top 10 distractors. In the process, you will get used to working with thoughts with your own thinking! Slowly, you will control thoughts, weed away uninvited distractors and your concentration will improve.

When you are ready to change, the techniques will help.