Yoga as Restoration

As human beings, we are constantly processing the information and stimuli that is swirling all around us. As college students we're running from class to lecture to mass meetings to seminars, and in every spare second we're checking our phones and scrolling through Facebook and Instagram.

Another quality that we, as human beings, share is a finite amount of directed attention. Like involuntary fascination, directed attention is an inhibitory response that quiets stimuli that is competing for our attention. However, while involuntary fascination draws our attention to shiny, bright, loud stimuli, directed attention allows us to ignore distractions an focus our attention on things that may not be inherently interesting, things like the three, forty-page readings your professor assigned, or even your favorite television show.

The downfall of directed attention? It fatigues. What would our human experience be like if directed attention never fatigued? Would we be able to read all one hundred twenty pages in one sitting? Would our attention never stray from Netflix, even if the fire alarm was going off?

That's why it's important that directed attention fatigues, and why involuntary fascination exists, to keep us all alive.

So when directed attention fatigues, what do we do? When I can't focus writing that midterm paper, or when I can't stand folding another article of clothing, or reading another passage, how can I restore my directed attention?

One of the best ways to restore directed attention is mindfulness practice. Mindfulness is taking a mental step back and observing your state of being and your environment without overly processing it.

This past summer the best mindfulness practice that I adopted was yoga. I do yoga everyday usually for an hour, especially after lengthy and demanding tasks like a day at work staring at computer screens or reading for classes. However, yoga does require some amount of attention, so how can it be restorative?

Yoga and other mindfulness practices are restorative because they allow you to think and to fill your mind with thoughts that don't require processing. In yoga you focus on your breath and the positioning of your body. You work your way up to challenging poses by slowly building your focus onto something you don't have to process the semantics of. You're not emptying your mind of your thoughts, you're tuning into the functioning of your body, you're turning your observations inward. For example on a mindful walk you're observing things, you're interacting with your environment in a new way. It's the same with yoga, just instead of external observation, the observation is turned inward.

So the next time you're brain feels exhausted, and you don't want to leave the house, take a fifteen minute break and do some yoga, or just stretch out and concentrate on the way your body feels with the movement of your breath.