Drishti for Inner Focus

Personal practice notes: This week I have been mostly working with Drishti for inner focus and promoting calm.

This week I’ve been super busy trying to round up multiple work projects, planning, studying, practicing yoga, gardening and DIY projects on our (still fairly new) house alongside all the usual life admin. Pretty stressful when your focus and prioritising capacity resembles a colony of bats in flight 🦇

Drishti aids in steadiness and focus

Thank goodness for lists and productivity apps! And also, thank goodness for yoga practices like drishti which promote calm, focus and concentration.

If you’ve done a few yoga classes you will probably be familiar with the gently calming experience of settling your attention in to the movement of your body and your breath. You may have also had the teacher cue a specific gazing point during a pose or practice. This gazing point is known as drishti, and it’s a powerful but not frequently explored yoga technique which can really support and train your focus.

So what, practically, is drishti? How does it work, who might practice it, when do you practice it and why?

Read on below to find out!

What is Drishti? Drishti is a Sanskrit word which is translated as gaze, sight or vision. During a yoga practice, drishti is a fixed point of gaze which anchors your attention, often during asana (postures) but it can also be used used during pranayama and meditation (and for the latter are often internal rather than external). It’s more than just looking, it’s an active engagement of your visual sense to cultivate concentration and stability. For this reason I especially like to use drishti during balance poses!

By fixing your gaze to a particular spot - either internal or external - we create a tangible anchor for the awareness. Even if it’s an external point, it helps to draw attention inwards, away from distractions, away from the “bigger picture” of the field of vision, and down into the experience of the present moment, mind, your body and the practice.

There are a considerable number of different drishti points we can use depending on our practice, read on below to see what they are and how to practice them.

Why do we use Drishti?

The primary purpose of drishti is to enhance our focus and concentration during our yoga practice. Think about it: in daily life how often would your eyes stay on the same spot for more than second or two? Or, if you’re like me, and often find yourself staring off into space, how often then is your attention in the place that you’re actually looking at?

Our eyes take in a multitude of stimuli and the constant visual input can contribute to feeling scattered and restless. When we consciously fix our gaze and our attention in one place with drishti, we can interrupt the pattern and train the mind towards becoming more present and still.

Physically, drishti may play a useful role In maintaining balance and stability in various yoga poses. It’s a steady reference point that helps your body orient itself in space. This is particularly helpful in balancing poses and or those which require a lot of tenacity to hold your pose steady, including boat pose (navasana), tree pose (vrkasana) and extended side angle (utthita parsvakonasana).

What are the benefits of Drishti?

Drishti can help you with finding stability in your pose, it can also deepen your awareness of your body and your breath. With your gaze fixed, you are less likely to become distracted by your surroundings and your thoughts. In this way drishti helps us to develop 'one pointed awareness' which is described in the Yoga Sutras as a method through which we begin to still the fluctuations of the mind.

Drishti can improve body awareness because our visual field is narrowed right down. This is also very handy for developing a mindful approach and reducing stress, because external stimuli are reduced when working with drishti.

I'm a great believer in cultivating mindfulness in yoga practice to manage stress and anxiety. Drishti is a simple but effective practice to anchor us in the present moment as we gently fix our eyes on one steady point. This helps us to cultivate a deeper state of focus and concentration which is also very helpful for mental wellbeing.

From an energetic point of view, a benefit of using drishti is that it usually points us in the direction of the pose. For example, anjaneyasana (crescent lunge pose) normally uses an 'urdhva' or upwards drishti to gently encourage the upwards and backwards movement.

You'll sometimes find more unusual gazing points (such as bhrumadhya or looking towards the third eye- yes, basically doing cross eyes) which are intended to turn the focus and energy internally.

Where can we use Drishti in our Yoga Practice?

Many yoga poses have drishti associated with them. Some common poses in which you may already be using drishti are:

Warrior I, Anjaneyasana, High Prayer- Urdhva or upwards drishti

Warrior II, Trikonasana (triangle)- Hasta or to the hand

Downwards facing dog- can be either Pada (to the toes) or Nabhi (to the navel!)

Seated forward fold- Pada or to the toes (which encourages length in the back body)

Seated twists, e.g. Marichyasana C- Parshva or to the side

Drishti points are commonly offered by teachers trained in the Ashtanga yoga tradition, however they can be applied to most posture practices.

We can cultivate our drishti practice in almost any pose, especially if we are working on balances like Warrior III, half moon or standing half lotus it can be very handy to find a steady spot for the gaze, wherever that might be (usually somewhere on the floor or wall in front). We can also cultivate inner drishti in poses which don't need eyes to be open by taking the focus to the breath or the sensations of the pose. This is the kind of thing we do in slow, mindful and Yin style yoga practices, and although it may not be traditionally called drishti, it's a great way of cultivating focus in yoga postures.

Is there anyone who shouldn't use Drishti in a Yoga Practice?

Most of us will be able to use drishti without any issues, but there are a few contra-indications.

People with neck or shoulder pain, or an eye condition such as glaucoma or a balance/inner ear issue such as vertigo, may wish be cautious about using drishti. As someone who can get vertigo from just looking at things funny, I know how important it is to gently take your gaze to your drishti point!

Anyone with an active, serious or ongoing issue may wish to skip the drishti altogether, keeping the gaze neutral and prioritising stability and focus in the pose in other ways.

Drishti is meant to help us find 'one pointed awareness', but for some people having a fixed gazing point can be unsettling or begin to feel forced, in which case it's fine to skip the drishti. Yoga is a practice of self-awareness, so check in and see what's working rather than doing it anyway.

For beginners, drishti isn't necessarily the first part of the practice to learn and too many different instructions can feel overwhelming, so again it's fine to skip the drishti and concentrate on becoming comfortable with the poses, meditation and breathing.

Conclusion: Drishti for Inner Focus

Drishti is a great mindful tool to add into yoga practice to help manage stress and anxiety as well as simply to help focus more in the moment. It allows us to develop balance and stability in certain poses as well as to cultivate our inner focus.

I find it particularly calming to use drishti in my practice when things are moving quickly around me in my life. It's a good anchor to have and a grounding practice to return to again and again.

If you want to work with me to cultivate your drishti, mindfulness or any other part of yoga practice, check out my online and in person yoga classes via the booking page.

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