5 Ways To Level Up Your Yoga & Meditation Practice

Enjoying your yoga and meditation, but feeling like you need to up your game? Here are five easy ways to improve your focus and mentality before, during, and after a session.

1. Set a Clear Intention Before Each Session

It’s all too easy to drift through a day, without living it to the full: life is full of distractions, responsibilities and deadlines that mean we lose focus, and don’t necessarily always use our time how we’d like to. While “setting an intention” may sound like a very basic thing to do, there is all the difference in the world between having a vague desire to achieve something and setting yourself a clear, achievable, and positively framed intention. For a yoga session, this could be completing a more challenging routine than you’re used to, or expanding your repertoire by adding some new poses. For meditation, intention-setting can be more difficult, as it can be difficult to keep a clear mind while focusing, but is still beneficial - even if your intention is just to ensure that you have twenty uninterrupted minutes to complete a session.

2. Incorporate Crystals for Energy and Focus

In many Eastern cultures, crystals are believed to contain life energy, and have healing properties. The key to harnessing these powers for your meditation or yoga sessions is to keep an open mind, and simply to believe in them - by shifting your consciousness away from the mundane, and into a more spiritual state, you can allow the crystals to influence your mentality, with hugely beneficial effects. Different types of crystal are more suited to addressing different issues in your psyche. If you’re feeling particularly stressed, for instance, considering incorporating some Mookaite crystal spheres into your meditation; similarly, Amethyst crystals are associated with improved mental clarity, while Tourmaline and Rose Quartz help to dispel negativity, and replace it with a more positive feeling. Once you’ve found a suitable type of crystal, such as these beautifully shaped crystal points used for grounding and focus, which are often placed nearby to enhance the meditative space, hold it in your right hand while meditating, and try to incorporate it into the physical sensation of grounding you should hopefully already feel from meditation. Although the benefits of the crystals themselves is unproven, they can be a useful tool for improved focus, and in the correct mindset, can provide at the very least a powerful placebo effect.

3. Create a Sacred Space for Practice

The environment in which you’re trying to relax can massively impact your headspace. The first thing to ensure is that, as a minimum, your space is tidy and uncluttered - this will help you maintain focus, and hopefully assist you to clear your mind. Beyond this, though, you might consider dedicating some space in your home as a sacred space, to try and provide not only a clean environment but a more positive, spiritual one. Gather together things that matter to you, and that you associate with healing: pictures of loved ones, statues, totems, trinkets - any object, basically, that holds positive significance for you will help to create better vibes for your sessions. Incorporating houseplants or some form of nature into the space not only oxygenates it, increasing the overall air and breathing quality, but can help you to ground yourself as well. 

4. Keep a Yoga and Meditation Journal

Self-reflection is one of the most important opportunities that consistent meditation affords us - by slowing life down, and taking a moment to really be in our own minds, we can learn things about ourselves, or, if we’re stressed, perhaps work out what it is that’s really bothering us. Keeping a yoga and meditation journal is a way of levelling up this experience: by writing down thoughts, you make yourself structure them and really think them through, as well as allowing you to look back through your journal to identify trends in your thinking or mindset. Further, writing something down can have the same relieving effect as telling someone a problem - sharing, even just with paper, lightens the load. 

5. Incorporate Sound Healing with Singing Bowls or Chimes

A relaxing soundscape has long been a crucial element of many yogic traditions. The most famous, perhaps, is the Tibetan singing bowl, but really any instrument you can find that makes you feel calm and has a tactile element could have significant benefits. The right musical backdrop helps to ground and relax you, as well as decreasing muscular tension and improving focus. It is worth spending time finding an instrument that suits you - there is huge variety, even within the singing bowl world. For a richer sound, consider a blend of metals; for a brighter sound try aluminium, and, if you feel it will help align your body’s energies, you could even try a crystal singing bowl.

If you can, try all of these tips, but remember: your meditation journey is a deeply personal one, so at the end of the day, do whatever feels right to you.