5 Best Balancing Yoga Poses to Enhance Mental Focus

Balance poses are a type of asana, or yoga pose, where you balance on one leg or use your arms to stay balanced. They help to strengthen your hamstrings, calves, quadriceps, gluteus maximus, and abs. Balance training is an obvious but often overlooked tool for avoiding falls and injuries. Balance yoga poses also help us to become aware of our breathing, enhance our focus, and deepen our connection with ourselves.

Balancing yoga poses can be difficult, but with practice, they become easier. It's important to focus on your breath, because if you don't you're likely to fall over.

Five Balancing Yoga Poses To Try

Approach each balance pose from the ground up, starting with your feet and working your way up to your head.

1) Eagle Pose

Eagle Pose improves balance and focus, helps develop body awareness, and stretches your shoulders, upper back, thighs, and ankles. It also helps strengthen your core, thighs, legs, and ankles.

How to do it:

Stand in Mountain Pose with your feet slightly apart and your hands on your hips.
Ground yourself by pressing your pelvis down with your hands and feel a sense of connection with the earth as you lift up through the crown of your head and lengthen your spine.
Bend both knees and lift your right foot; then wrap it behind your left calf.
Curl your right foot, hooking it there, and reach both arms out in front of you.
Cross your left arm over the right upper arm, and press your palms together.
Raise your elbows to shoulder height.
Stretch your back by staying in Plank Pose for five breaths.
Then return to Mountain Pose and repeat on the other side.

2) Half Moon

This balancing yoga pose strengthens your thighs and ankles, stretches the back of your thigh (hamstrings) and buttocks (glutes), and stretches your groin. It can also strengthen your outer thighs/abductors and buttocks (glutes).

Here's how you do this posture:

Standing with your left foot forward, begin in Extended Triangle Pose.
Bring your right hand to your hip, turn your head to look down at the floor and bend your front leg.
Shift your weight into your front foot and reach your arm forward a little; place it on the mat or a block directly beneath your shoulder.
Press down through your fingers to steady yourself.
In this pose, reach up to the ceiling with your top hand and twist your torso to the right.
Lift your back leg so that it is parallel to the floor with a slight bend in your standing leg.

3) Handstand Pose

Handstand yoga pose requires you to keep your body steady, with your shoulders aligned with your wrists. It can be difficult to maintain a balanced position because your brain gets confused when you're upside down, but with practice and focus, you'll have a better balance.

Here's how you do this pose:

Stand with your feet wide apart, a yoga block under your instep, and your hands at your sides.
Raise one foot off the ground; the other leg remains straight. This is called the Handstand prep pose.
Grip your mat firmly with the tips of your fingers as you push down through your knuckles.
Stand on one leg, bend the other knee, and pull the thigh bone toward your pelvis.
Lift the other leg up toward the sky.
Once you're able to do a handstand, bring your legs together. Draw in your glutes and engage your core muscles.

4) Side Plank Pose

The Vasisthasana or Side Plank yoga pose provides powerful arm and wrist strength. It is as joyful as it is beautiful, with your bottom leg grounded into the floor and your top leg raised until it is perpendicular to the floor. Your upper body extends, lifting the heart into an offering.

Here's how you this pose:

From Downward Dog, step forward and stack your left foot on top of your right.
Swing your left hand onto your left hip and turn your torso to the left.
Align your body into one long diagonal line from heels to crown, stretching left arm toward the ceiling.
Stay in the position for several breaths, then return to Plank and repeat on other side.

5) Warrior III Pose

The warrior pose is a challenging posture that requires concentration, stamina, and patience. It is a perfect example of the push and pull of life—gathering energy in, and extending it out.

How to do it:

From Mountain pose, step the right foot forward and shift all of your weight onto it.
Lift the arms over your head and interlace your fingers, pointing the index finger up.
As you exhale, lift the left leg up and out and hinge at the hips to lower the torso.
Look down at the floor for balance and extend out through both legs in one straight line.
Hold for 2-6 breaths before lowering back into Mountain pose. Repeat on other side.

Takeaway

There are many different types of balancing yoga poses, but only a few of them increase balance and coordination. When you're searching for poses to improve your balance, focus on poses that not only help you engage in the physical action of balancing but also those that help you develop the concentration and mental control it takes to maintain a pose for an extended period of time.