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Yoga And Mindfulness: Why The Mindfulness Research Points Back To Yoga And The Breath

Yoga and mindfulness: the short answer

Have you ever been told to try mindfulness for stress, and wondered how it differs from your yoga class? The short answer is that yoga and mindfulness are not two separate things. Mindfulness is a modern Western name for a state of mind that yoga, pranayama (the yoga practice of breath control) and breath meditation have been producing for thousands of years. So when research finds the benefits of mindfulness for stress, worry, sleep or pain, that research is also good news for yoga and the breath. In everyday words, yoga and mindfulness meet in mindfulness yoga: yoga done with steady attention on the breath. Yoga’s name slipped out of the story along the way, and this page explains how that happened.

Diagram: yoga, mindfulness and breathwork share one loop of resting attention on the breath, noticing the mind has wandered, and bringing it back
The same simple loop sits under yoga, Buddhist mindfulness of breathing, Kabat-Zinn’s 1979 course and an Iyengar class.

Yoga and mindfulness share one simple loop: rest your attention on the breath, notice when it wanders, and bring it back.

This article follows in short form:

  • Mindfulness is a state of mind; yoga and pranayama are older roads to it.
  • Kabat-Zinn, a yoga teacher, built yoga into his 1979 course, then used plain medical words, so yoga’s name dropped away.
  • Mr BKS Iyengar wrote in 1988 that awareness in a pose is itself meditation.
  • Geeta Iyengar said asana and pranayama build “the capital of the yogic mind”.
  • A senior Australian Iyengar teacher wrote openly about mindful practice.
  • Trials link mindfulness courses with less anxiety, back pain and stress.
  • Iyengar yoga and yogic breathing raised mindfulness scores in trials.
  • Start with a class, and a few slow breaths today.

What is this page about?

People tend to put mindfulness, yoga, breathwork and meditation in four separate boxes. A mindfulness app here. A yoga class there. A breathing course somewhere else.

We think that split is mostly a Western habit. It hides something useful. All four are ways of training the same thing: where your attention goes, and how steady your mind stays while it is there.

This page sets out the whole story, from the old yoga texts to today’s trials. We also say plainly where the research is strong, where it is still being studied, and where we rely on what the yoga tradition knows from practice.

A quick note for anyone new to us. Iyengar yoga is the style developed by Mr BKS Iyengar. In the 20th century he did more than anyone to codify (set down in an organised, teachable form) traditional Indian yoga, through his books and his teaching, and he pioneered the use of props such as blocks, belts, chairs and bolsters. His style is sometimes called modern classical yoga. It is the style we teach at Flametree, in Darwin and online.

And so you know where we stand: we teach yoga and pranayama classes, so we have an interest in this story. We also think it matters to anyone who has been told to “try mindfulness” and does not know where to start. What we are not saying is that mindfulness and yoga are identical in every way. We are saying they are the same family of practice, and that this changes how you can read the research.

Yoga and mindfulness in practice: breath gives the mind one job

Yoga and mindfulness: Chris Lalor practising Alternate Nostril Breath (Nadi Shodhana), a pranayama breath meditation
Chris Lalor, Certified Senior Iyengar Yoga Teacher and certified Yoga Therapist, Flametree Yoga Darwin, practising Alternate Nostril Breath (Nadi Shodhana).

Yoga and mindfulness in practice: Chris Lalor in Alternate Nostril Breath, giving the mind one job.

Did yoga come before mindfulness?

Yes, by a very long way.

Timeline: from Patanjali's yoga to the Buddha's mindfulness of breathing, the 1979 Kabat-Zinn course and today's mindfulness trials
A short timeline from Patanjali to today’s trials.

Yoga and mindfulness have shared roots: Patanjali’s yoga and the Buddha’s mindfulness of breathing.

More than two thousand years ago, the sage Patanjali gathered the Yoga Sutras (short sayings about the mind). The second sutra defines yoga itself. In Mr Iyengar’s translation: “Yoga is the cessation of movements in the consciousness.” In everyday words, yoga is about calming the ripples of the mind, so you can see clearly.

Patanjali also linked the breath to a steady mind, and set out pranayama as the step that makes the mind fit for concentration. Around the same broad era, the Buddha taught mindfulness of breathing: simply knowing, as you breathe in long, that you are breathing in long.

The English word “mindfulness” arrived much later. It was chosen in 1881 by a scholar translating the old Pali word “sati”, which means awareness, or remembering to pay attention.

So the word is new. The practice is old. And in the yoga tradition, it was never a separate practice. It was simply part of doing yoga properly.

How did modern mindfulness grow out of meditation and yoga?

In 1979 an American scientist named Jon Kabat-Zinn started a course at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. It became Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, usually shortened to MBSR. It is the best-known mindfulness course in the world, and most of the big mindfulness trials test it or courses built on it.

Diagram: the 1979 Kabat-Zinn course combined mindfulness meditation and gentle hatha yoga, and became MBSR
Jon Kabat-Zinn was a yoga teacher, and he built yoga into the course.

Yoga and mindfulness met in 1979, when Kabat-Zinn’s course combined mindfulness meditation with gentle hatha yoga.

From day one, MBSR was built on two things: mindfulness meditation and gentle hatha yoga (physical yoga poses). A major trial in the medical journal JAMA describes it in exactly those words: “training in mindfulness meditation and yoga.”

And Kabat-Zinn was a yoga teacher before he was a mindfulness teacher. In his own account of how MBSR began (Contemporary Buddhism, 2011), he wrote that he was “teaching large mindful yoga classes weekly in a church in Harvard Square” and running yoga and stretching workshops for athletes, and that he wanted to share “the essence of meditation and yoga practices” as he had been learning them. Looking back in a 2025 interview with Lion’s Roar magazine, he described himself as a yoga teacher, said his experience teaching Corpse Pose (Savasana) helped shape the body scan, and said he recorded “guided mindful hatha yoga sessions” for the first MBSR classes. Some writers who have studied the history say the same thing in other words: he drew on hatha yoga, insight meditation and Zen when he opened the clinic in 1979 (see Wilson, Mindful America, 2014, and Kathirasan and Rai, 2023, in the references).

So the order of events matters to our argument. Yoga was already in his hands as a teacher, and it went into the course he built. Mindfulness, as a modern medical word, came out of that mix.

His best-known definition of mindfulness is “paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally.”

Now picture a well-taught Iyengar pose. Your attention is on purpose (the teacher asks you to press the feet down and lift the legs). It is in the present moment (the pose is happening now, not yesterday). And with practice, it becomes less judging (you notice “I can’t do this” as a passing thought, not a fact).

To be fair to Kabat-Zinn, he does not say mindfulness is yoga. He presents it as a universal human ability. Our claim is narrower and, we think, solid: mindfulness and yoga share roots, the main Western mindfulness course has had yoga in it since 1979, and both train the same attention.

Why did yoga drop out of the mindfulness story?

Here is something we think matters, and we offer it as our view. Today people often say “mindfulness lowers stress” or “mindfulness helps sleep”, as if mindfulness were a separate invention. The yoga and breath practices it grew from rarely get a mention.

Five steps showing how yoga's name slipped out of the mindfulness story, from the 1979 course to today's trials
How yoga’s name slipped out of the story, in five steps.

How yoga’s name slipped out of the yoga and mindfulness story, in five steps.

Kabat-Zinn has been open about the reasons. He wanted his hospital course to suit ordinary patients and doctors in a medical school. So he taught what he has called Buddhist meditation “without the Buddhism”, along with yoga, in plain everyday language. In his 2011 account he also said that yoga centres were few at the time and felt very foreign to most people. For a hospital in 1979, that was a sensible choice. It also meant the Indian and Buddhist roots slipped out of view, and the modern word “mindfulness” became the name for the whole package.

Dan Harris, the American newsreader and author of 10% Happier, tells the same story from the outside. On the mindbodygreen podcast (episode 36, January 2018) he describes a generation of young Americans who “ended up in India in the 60s and 70s” and embraced meditation. He names Kabat-Zinn among them, along with Sharon Salzberg, Joseph Goldstein, Jack Kornfield and Mark Epstein. They came home, he says, and taught these Eastern practices in a Western setting. Kabat-Zinn’s version, in Harris’s words, “stripped out all the religious lingo and the metaphysical claims”, so it could be studied in a scientific setting.

Harris adds that the kind of meditation studied most in labs “is derived from Buddhism, but is thoroughly secularized”. Notice what is missing from that sentence. Yoga is not mentioned, even though yoga was part of the course. That is how the story has been told for years.

Yoga and mindfulness work from home too

Yoga and mindfulness: a student at home joins a Flametree Yoga online class for a seated breath practice
A Flametree online class. The same simple practice works at home with a screen.

Yoga and mindfulness at home: a student joins an online class.

Put the steps in order, and the pattern is easy to see:

  1. Young Westerners learned meditation from Indian and Asian teachers in the 1960s and 70s.
  2. Kabat-Zinn, already a yoga teacher, built meditation and yoga into a hospital course in 1979.
  3. To suit a medical school, the course used everyday words, with no Indian or Buddhist labels, and yoga centres felt foreign to most people.
  4. Trials tested the course and called it “mindfulness”.
  5. The new name travelled the world. The yoga and breath roots stayed behind.

Over the years the gap has widened. Someone who reads that “mindfulness” eased anxiety is rarely told that the course included yoga poses and a breath-focused practice with roots in yoga and in Buddhist breath meditation.

Strip it back, and the core exercise is the one Pixie Lillas described: rest your attention on the breath, notice that the mind has wandered, and bring it back. Yoga teachers call that pranayama and breath meditation. In our view, much of the credit given to “mindfulness” belongs to yoga and the breath too.

We cannot prove that. No trial has pulled apart the parts of a mindfulness course (breath focus, body scan, yoga poses, the group, home practice) to see which part does what. The Buddhist tradition also has its own long history of breath meditation, so this is a shared inheritance, not something yoga owns alone. And to be fair to Kabat-Zinn, he lists mindful hatha yoga as one of the course’s formal practices and has written openly about where the course came from. Our point is simpler: when you read mindfulness research, remember how much of it is about yoga and the breath.

What did Mr BKS Iyengar say about meditation and the mind?

Mr Iyengar rarely used the word mindfulness. But he described the state again and again.

Quote card: BKS Iyengar, Do not think there is division between asana, pranayama and dhyana, Yoga Vaani, December 1988
Mr BKS Iyengar on asana (poses), pranayama (breath practice) and dhyana (meditation).

In December 1988, the Australian Iyengar journal Yoga Vaani printed a short piece by him called “Yoga and Meditation.” It reads almost like a manifesto for this page. He wrote:

“The awareness from within, of every pore of the body in the asanas is itself meditation.”

He was clear that a dull or sleepy mind is not the goal:

“Drowsiness is not to be mistaken for meditation.”

“In meditation the mind is still but razor sharp, silent but vibrant with energy.”

He linked a steady, upright body with a mind that stays in the present:

“An alert, erect spine creates a spiritual intensity of concentration that burns out distracting thoughts and the brooding over past and future and leaves one in the purity of the present.”

And then, the line that goes to the heart of this whole page:

“Do not think there is division between asana, pranayama and dhyana.”

Asana means the yoga poses. Dhyana means meditation. In the same piece he called the pranayama techniques, like the poses, “vehicles of meditation”.

He said the same thing in other words over many years. “Your bodies are in the past; your minds in the future. When you do yoga, they come together in the present.” And in a 1998 talk he called the quality he wanted “present-mindedness”.

The same message turns up in two later interviews printed in Yoga Vaani. In 2007 he asked for total attention through the whole of practice, and asked a question that fits this page well: “Why not meditative standing poses, reflective standing poses?” In a 1984 interview that Yoga Vaani reprinted in 2004, he said practice needs both halves: “Asana alone will not help. Pranayama alone will not help.” In other words, the poses and the breath are two parts of one practice, and relaxation alone is not the aim.

Quieting the senses so the mind can turn inward

Yoga and mindfulness: Chris Lalor seated on a bolster with a hand at the ear in a pranayama practice
Soft eyes and quiet ears help the mind settle on the breath.

Yoga and mindfulness on the mat: Chris Lalor seated in breath practice.

An earlier interview, printed in Yoga Vaani 5 in June 1986, shows the same idea. Asked about meditation, Mr Iyengar said: “In the asana you are connected and at the same time detached.” He also drew a contrast between two kinds of quiet: “Asanas lead to fullness, tranquility with fullness, not tranquility with emptiness.” That is the alert, awake stillness this page keeps coming back to.

One point to be clear about. Mr Iyengar did not think all quietness is the same. His drowsiness line says it: a sleepy, switched-off calm is not the aim. The yogic aim is a mind that is quiet and alert at once, not simply relaxed. As you will see below, one trial found exactly that difference matters.

What did Geeta Iyengar say?

Geeta Iyengar, Mr Iyengar’s daughter, was a doctor of Ayurveda (traditional Indian medicine) and one of the most respected teachers of the tradition. At Flametree we are led by her approach to pranayama more than any other.

Quote card: Geeta Iyengar, We can build up on the capital of the yogic mind through the practice of asanas and pranayama
Geeta Iyengar, in a talk in the USA in 2001.

In a talk given in the USA in 2001, later printed in the journal Yoga Rahasya and in Yoga Vaani, she called the mind and consciousness our real “capital”, our inheritance. Then she said how we add to it:

“We can build up on the capital of the yogic mind through the practice of asanas and pranayama.”

She gave a simple example. Standing in Mountain Pose, you notice the weight has drifted onto the left foot, and something feels wrong. In her words, “When you think of that then the yogic mind gradually builds up.”

She also spoke about carrying the calm of pranayama into the day:

“If you have really experienced calmness, quietness while doing pranayama, then you carry that feeling for the whole day in your job. You are less disturbed, less perturbed.”

In a lecture in Perth in 2003, printed in Yoga Vaani in 2009, she put it another way:

“Yoga is like a mirror, it reflects our sva-bhava [nature].”

In a pose, she explained, you begin to notice that the left leg always cramps, or one lung opens more easily than the other. “This is how the reflection begins.” Small things first. Then moods, habits and your own nature.

That noticing, without panic, in the present moment, is very close to what the West calls mindfulness.

What did a senior Australian Iyengar teacher say?

Pixie Lillas is one of the most senior Iyengar teachers in Australia, a Sydney teacher who has studied with the Iyengar family since the 1970s. In 2004 she wrote a series of three articles on pranayama for Yoga Vaani. She uses the word mindful openly.

Seated breath practice, with a bolster for support

Yoga and mindfulness: seated breath practice on a bolster, an Iyengar yoga prop, with a strap
A bolster (firm yoga cushion) lets the spine sit tall, so the breath has room to move.

In the first article she wrote that “mindful practice of asana” builds the discipline, energy and firmness of intention needed “to move further along the path of pranayama to inner awareness.”

In the third, on when to practise, she wrote that early morning pranayama offers “a clear start to the day, a moment to be self reflective and to set up good patterns of breath and mindfulness for the next 24 hours.”

And she offered encouragement every beginner needs. When the mind keeps running off, “like a parent with a small child who is constantly running off you just need to keep bringing your mind back to the body, back to the breath.” Then:

“Just one even steady breath with complete mindfulness is something to be satisfied with.”

That is the mindfulness loop, word for word: rest attention on something, notice it has wandered, bring it back. Written by an Iyengar pranayama teacher, about pranayama.

What do the Iyengar journals add?

The quotes above come from Iyengar association journals: Yoga Vaani (the journal of Iyengar Yoga Australia) and Yoga Rahasya (from the Iyengar institute in Pune, India). We have been working through about 4,000 articles from journals like these around the world.

Resting the breath, lying down

Yoga and mindfulness: a woman resting on her back on a yoga mat in the Flametree Yoga studio, practising a restful breath
Resting on the back is a quiet way to watch the breath. Mr Iyengar warned that drowsiness is not meditation.

A scholar, Karl Baier, made the same point in Yoga Vaani in 1997. Writing about Mr Iyengar’s method, he explained how attention in a pose moves from single points to the whole pose, which is dharana (focusing on one point) turning into dhyana (meditation). In his words, “the specific posture becomes the place of meditation.” Another Yoga Vaani piece, from 2004 and reprinted from Yoga Rahasya, explains a presentation Mr Iyengar gave at his 85th birthday celebration. It describes how balancing the body’s five streams of vital energy (the prana vayus) in a pose carries the practice inward until “asana then becomes a meditative practice.” A 1995 reprint in Yoga Vaani, “Meditation in Asana Practice”, makes a similar point: meditation is possible only in an asana, through attention to the inner workings of the pose.

The same picture keeps appearing. In the poses, you learn to watch. Savasana (Corpse Pose, the lying-down rest at the end of class) is taught as active, aware stillness, not sleep. Then pranayama takes that watching inward, to the breath.

Our own teacher, Chris Lalor (Certified Senior Iyengar Yoga Teacher and certified Yoga Therapist, Flametree Yoga Darwin), puts it simply. In her 2024 Bali retreat talks she said: “Yoga is a mindfulness practice.” And: “Pranayama meditation is the process of breathing so as to influence the mind.”

How does pranayama connect to breath meditation and modern breathwork?

Most modern mindfulness and breathwork courses use one main technique. Rest your attention on the breath. Notice when the mind wanders. Bring it back. Repeat. It is simple, and it works for many people.

Hands at the face, attention on the breath

Yoga and mindfulness: Chris Lalor seated on a bolster in a pranayama breath practice with hands at the face
Pranayama (breath practice) with the hands at the face: the breath is the one thing to follow.

Yoga uses that same loop, and adds more ways in. For example:

  • The pose itself. A held pose gives a busy mind one demanding job, so there is less room for chatter.
  • Sound. Ocean Breath (Ujjayi) has a soft sound in the throat, and Humming Bee Breath (Bhramari) a gentle hum. Sound gives the mind something to follow.
  • Shape and length. Staircase Breath (Viloma) breathes in or out in small steps with pauses. Alternate Nostril Breath (Nadi Sodhana) evens the breath side to side.
  • Rest for the senses. Soft eyes and quiet ears in Savasana help the mind turn inward.
  • Order. In our style, poses come first and pranayama comes later. Steadiness in the body first, then the subtler work.

As Pixie Lillas wrote, a pranayama breath is “more than just deep breathing”. It must be “regulated, steady, evenly prolonged, channelled and conscious.”

So we see much of modern breathwork as the simple, stripped-back version of what pranayama has always done. Useful, and well worth doing. But pranayama is a fuller set of tools, taught step by step.

One more distinction. “Breathwork”, “meditation” and “mindfulness” are loose words. A study might call almost anything breathwork. Pranayama taught by a trained Iyengar teacher is a more defined practice. Where the methods overlap, they mostly calm. Forceful fast breathing is different, which is one reason our pranayama is introduced slowly.

What does the research on mindfulness find?

Here is the step people tend to miss. If mindfulness is a state of mind, and yoga and pranayama are older roads to it, then what studies find about mindfulness tells us something about where those roads lead.

Summary of mindfulness trial results for anxiety, back pain, sleep, anger and depression returning, with the number of people studied
What mindfulness trials have found, and how many people were studied.

These are studies of mindfulness courses, most of which include yoga or breath practice. Some highlights:

  • Anxiety. An eight-week MBSR course worked as well as the anti-anxiety drug escitalopram, with far fewer side effects. A trial of 276 adults with anxiety disorders, JAMA Psychiatry, 2023.
  • Back pain. MBSR, which teaches mindfulness meditation and yoga, gave 60.5% of people a clear gain in daily function at six months, against 44.1% with usual care. A trial of 342 adults with long-lasting low back pain, JAMA, 2016. The gains held at one year.
  • Sleep. Six weeks of mindfulness meditation improved sleep quality more than a sleep-habits class. A trial of 49 older adults, JAMA Internal Medicine, 2015.
  • Anger. Calming practices, such as deep breathing, mindfulness and meditation, reduced anger. Letting off steam, like hitting a bag or going for a run, did not. A review of 154 studies and 10,189 people, Clinical Psychology Review, 2024.
  • Stress. Breathwork lowered stress, anxiety and low mood compared with control groups. A review of 12 trials and 785 adults for stress, Scientific Reports, 2023.
  • The big reviews. A review of 47 trials with 3,515 people found moderate evidence that mindfulness courses eased anxiety, low mood and pain (JAMA Internal Medicine, 2014). A review of 209 studies with 12,145 people found mindfulness helpful, with the largest effects for anxiety, stress and depression (Clinical Psychology Review, 2013).
  • Depression coming back. Across 9 trials with 1,258 people, a mindfulness-based course was linked with a lower risk of depression returning than in the comparison groups (JAMA Psychiatry, 2016).

To be fair, the field has had hype as well as good results. One well-known 2018 paper called “Mind the Hype” asked for better-designed studies, and the studies above vary in quality. We tell it as it stands. If you would like to see how one person tested mindfulness on herself, with the studies laid out, read our review of the film My Year Of Living Mindfully.

None of these studies tested Iyengar yoga on its own. But they tested practices from the same family. In our view, that makes them part of the evidence for yoga and pranayama, not separate from it.

Is there research on yoga and pranayama themselves?

Yes. And it points the same way. These studies measured mindfulness directly.

Five ways yoga trains the same attention that mindfulness trains: the held pose, sound, shape and length of breath, rest for the senses, and order
Five ways yoga trains the same attention.

  • Iyengar yoga and mindfulness. Ten Iyengar yoga classes over five weeks improved stress and mindfulness, as did a mindfulness course. A trial of 35 healthy adults in London, 2012.
  • Iyengar yoga versus exercise. Mindfulness rose with Iyengar yoga but not with supervised walking. Long-term blood sugar also fell more with yoga. A trial of 48 adults with type 2 diabetes, 2019.
  • Home practice. Among 1,045 students from 15 US Iyengar studios (average age 52, 84% women), the more often people practised at home, the more mindful they were, and the better they slept. A survey, 2012, so it shows a link, not cause.
  • Yogic breathing. Adding 20 minutes a day of yogic breathing with short breath holds to usual yoga raised mindfulness and cut mind wandering more than yoga alone. A trial of 116 young yoga practitioners in India, 2018.
  • Iyengar yoga with slow breathing. Twelve weeks of Iyengar yoga with coherent breathing (slow, even breathing) eased depression and anxiety at both doses tested. A trial of 32 adults with major depression in Boston, 2019. It had no non-yoga group.

And one study shows why Mr Iyengar’s warning about drowsiness matters. Students who spent a 20-minute break counting their breaths solved more of the puzzles they had earlier given up on. Staying watchful (signalling every 10 breaths) helped more than drifting (every 100 breaths), and more relaxation-type brain waves went with less insight. A study of 48 university students, 2011. Quiet and alert at the same time, exactly as he described.

What do we know, and what is still being studied?

Known from practice. Iyengar teaching holds that a held pose gives the busy mind one job and lets it settle. Poses come first and pranayama after. Awareness from within, in the pose, is itself a form of meditation. Students commonly tell us they have a quieter mind, sleep better and feel less stressed. Much of this has been found over thousands of years of yogic trial and error. Not yet tested by modern research is not the same as not working.

Three ways of knowing: known from practice, supported by research, and still being studied
Three ways of knowing. Not yet tested is not the same as not working.

Supported by modern research. Iyengar yoga and yogic breathing were linked with higher mindfulness in trials. Mindfulness courses that include yoga were linked with less anxiety, better function with back pain, and better sleep. Calming practices were linked with less anger, and breathwork with less stress.

Still being studied. No study has yet followed people all the way from yoga poses, to mindfulness, to a health result, as one chain. No trial has yet tested Iyengar pranayama by name on mindfulness. Early studies suggest a quiet, alert mind helps with fresh insight and clearer choices, but this work is still early. And at least one short course of ten beginner yoga classes found no clear rise in mindfulness, which fits what the longer trials suggest: give it weeks, not days.

So what does this mean for you?

If you have been told to try mindfulness, a yoga class is a very good place to start. You train the same attention, with your body and breath as the anchor, and with a teacher guiding you.

If you already do yoga, you have been practising mindfulness all along, perhaps without the label. Pranayama is the natural next step, when your teacher thinks you are ready.

And if your interest is a particular health problem, our Yoga For Health Conditions Encyclopaedia brings together what Mr Iyengar, the yoga doctors and the research say, condition by condition.

How can you start today?

Try this now, wherever you are. Sit a little taller. Let your shoulders soften. Breathe in slowly. Breathe out even more slowly. Do it twice more.

Breath practice on a chair, for support

Yoga and mindfulness: breath practice seated on a chair with a strap, a supported start for pranayama
A chair and a strap make breath practice easy to start, whatever your age or flexibility.

Yoga and mindfulness on a chair: a few breaths is enough to start.

Notice that for those few breaths, your mind was right here. That is the whole idea, in miniature.

To take it further, start with a class. New students can begin with our half price 10 class pass, which includes 2 free classes, in Darwin or live online: https://flametreeyogastudio.com.au/product/beginner-yoga-darwin-and-online-deal/

See class times on the timetable: https://flametreeyogastudio.com.au/beginner-timetable/ or see the whole timetable, pick an online or in-studio class and reserve if you wish: https://flametreeroom1.punchpass.com/classes

When you are ready for breath work, see our pranayama and breath meditation classes: https://flametreeyogastudio.com.au/yoga/meditation-classes-darwin/

A few cautions with pranayama. Breath holds are not for people with high blood pressure or heart problems. In pregnancy, avoid fast or forceful breathing and long holds. Never fight the breath. Feel free to tell your teacher about anything you would like them to know.

Feel free to check with your professional advisers if you wish, but also give yoga a try.

Read more

Frequently asked questions

Is yoga a form of mindfulness?

In our view, yes. Mindfulness means paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, without judging. A well-taught yoga pose asks for exactly that. Trials have found mindfulness scores rose with Iyengar yoga.

Did mindfulness come from yoga?

Mindfulness grew from older Indian and Buddhist meditation practices, and the best-known Western course, MBSR (1979), was built on mindfulness meditation and yoga from the start. So they share roots. Mindfulness is not identical to yoga, but it is the same family of practice.

Why does mindfulness rarely mention yoga?

When Jon Kabat-Zinn built his 1979 hospital course, he used plain everyday words and left out the Buddhist and Indian labels. He has also said yoga centres felt very foreign to most people then. The course still included yoga, but the new word “mindfulness” became the name for the whole package, so yoga’s part is easy to miss.

What is the difference between mindfulness and meditation?

Mindfulness is a state of attention: aware, in the present, without judging. Meditation is a practice that trains it, for example resting attention on the breath and bringing it back when it wanders. Yoga poses and pranayama are other ways to train the same state.

Is pranayama the same as breathwork?

Not quite. “Breathwork” is a loose modern word for many breathing exercises. Pranayama is the yoga practice of breath control, with defined techniques such as Ocean Breath and Staircase Breath, taught step by step after the poses. Where they overlap, both mostly calm.

What are the benefits of mindfulness?

Trials have linked mindfulness courses with less anxiety (as effective as a common anti-anxiety drug in one trial of 276 adults), better function with back pain, better sleep in older adults, and less anger. Many of these courses include yoga or breath practice.

Does the mindfulness research apply to yoga?

We think it does, carefully. The studies tested mindfulness courses, not Iyengar yoga on its own. But both train the same attention, and trials have found yoga and yogic breathing raise mindfulness. So mindfulness results are good reason to expect similar benefits from yoga and pranayama.

What did Mr BKS Iyengar say about meditation?

In 1988 he wrote that “the awareness from within, of every pore of the body in the asanas is itself meditation”, that “drowsiness is not to be mistaken for meditation”, and “Do not think there is division between asana, pranayama and dhyana.”

Do I need to do yoga for years before I feel more mindful?

No. Many people notice a quieter mind in their first classes. In the trials, changes showed up over five to twelve weeks of regular classes. Pranayama is usually added later, once the poses are steady.

Flametree Yoga Studio, Darwin and live online across Australia. This page is general information, not medical advice.

References

Iyengar association journals (Iyengar Yoga Australia e-Library, members’ area, and Yoga Rahasya)

  • BKS Iyengar. “Yoga and Meditation.” Yoga Vaani 15, December 1988, pp. 25-26. https://iyengaryoga.asn.au/blog/documents/yoga-vaani-15-december-1988/
  • BKS Iyengar. “The Practice of Asanas: Intelligence, Attention and Evolution.” Yoga Vaani 90, June 2007 (as told to Rita Keller and Nathalie Blondel; first printed in Yoga Rahasya 13:3, 2006).
  • BKS Iyengar. “Complete Relaxation Through Pranayama.” Yoga Vaani 79, September 2004 (a 1984 interview).
  • Karl Baier. “Analysis of the transition from Dharana to Dhyana in Asana.” Yoga Vaani 48, March 1997.
  • “Pranic Awareness in Asana: An Explanation by Guruji.” Yoga Vaani 79, September 2004 (reprinted from Yoga Rahasya 11:3, 2004; author not named in the journal).
  • BKS Iyengar. Interview in Pune on meditation (Leslie Hogya and Shirley Daventry-French). Yoga Vaani 5, June 1986, pp. 10-11.
  • “Meditation in Asana Practice” (excerpt on psycho-dynamics). Yoga Vaani 38, March 1995 (reprint from Yoga Rahasya with permission of RIMYI; author not named).
  • BKS Iyengar. “Yoga and Meditation.” Yoga Vaani 26, October 1991, p. 9 (opening of the same essay printed in full in issue 15).
  • Geeta S Iyengar. “The Yogic Mind in Daily Life.” Talk in the USA, 2001; Yoga Rahasya 13:4, 2006; reprinted in Yoga Vaani 99, September 2009. https://iyengaryoga.asn.au/blog/documents/yoga-vaani-99-september-2009/
  • Geeta S Iyengar. Lecture in Perth, 30 April 2003. Yoga Vaani 98, June 2009. https://iyengaryoga.asn.au/blog/documents/yoga-vaani-98-june-2009/
  • Pixie Lillas. Three articles on pranayama. Yoga Vaani 77, 78 and 79, March, June and September 2004. https://iyengaryoga.asn.au/blog/documents/yoga-vaani-77-march-2004/ and https://iyengaryoga.asn.au/blog/documents/yoga-vaani-79-september-2004/

Origins of mindfulness

Research

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