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The third eye chakra, also known as the ajna chakra, is home to your intuition; your internal guidance system. It’s here where your deepest truth and wisdom exist.
A balanced third eye chakra gives great mental clarity and enhanced intuition, according to The Yoga Collective. When blocked, this shows up through confusion, uncertainty, and a lost sense of purpose. Reconnect with your intuition. Try out these five yoga poses for the third eye chakra and reach a place of clarity.
Lotus pose - Padmasana
Intention setting plays a core role in every yoga practice, especially for those that focus on opening up the third eye chakra. To begin your flow, hop on the yoga mat and come to a comfortable seated position entering lotus pose.
In this pose, cross your legs, in whichever way feels good to you, elongate your spine, and let your head tower over the torso. Place your hands together in the prayer pose, positioned in front of the third eye chakra. According to Yoga Journal, this positions you right at the core of your being, representing the purest offering to your practice.
While in this position, you can go ahead and set an intention that ignites your inner guidance system. You can try out a third eye chakra affirmation such as, “I trust my intuition to guide me towards my truth.”
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Dolphin Pose - Makarasana
Connecting the third eye chakra with the dolphin pose encourages you to open up and receive what your practice is guiding you towards. According to Ekhart Yoga, visualizing light during this meditative pose can bring radiance to your practice and allows you to discover the infinite within.
To practice the dolphin pose, begin on all fours. Keep your shoulders stacked over your wrists with your hips over your knees. From here, come on down to your forearms so that your elbows are gently resting on the ground below. Your head falls in between your arms as you come up onto the toes, walking your feet closer to the top of the mat to create a triangle shape. While here, become mindful of the space in between your eyebrows as you recite internally “OM.”
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Bow Pose - Dhanurasana
The bow pose offers an array of benefits, especially for those sitting at a desk all day according to verywellfit. It encourages you to connect with the breath and open up the body.
Enter the bow pose by lying entirely face down on the mat, with your tummy grounding to the earth beneath you. Take a moment to connect to the present moment. When you are ready, begin to reach your hands back towards your feet, grasping your ankles and strongly flexi your feet. As you inhale, lengthen your legs and hands as you create a bow shape with your body.
Focus on expanding through the chest with your head held high. Turn your eye and gaze inwards towards the third eye chakra and hold here for a few seconds before releasing on exhalation. You can practice this pose three to five times depending on what your body needs.
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Humble Warrior - Baddha Virabhadrasana
Cultivate openness and strength with the humble warrior pose. With many benefits for the mind and body, this pose builds stamina, balance, and concentration, according to The Yoga Collective.
As you balance your upper body with your lower body rooted into the ground you’ll enter a state of calmness and promote clarity. From Warrior I, interlace your fingers behind your back and bend the top half of the body entirely over the bottom half of the body. Allow the breath to guide you here and stay for as long as feels good for you.
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Child’s Pose - Balasana
No yoga practice would be complete without the trusty child’s pose. No matter what level of yoga you choose to practice, every yogi will enter child’s post at some point while on the mat, whether for a rest in between each vinyasa flow or at the beginning and end of the practice.
Child’s pose invites you to come down onto the mat, entering a seated kneeling position and bending the entire upper body forward with arms stretched towards the tip of the mat. This pose ignites the mind-body connection during a yoga practice, according to Yoga Download, and allows you to stimulate the third eye chakra with the mat to embrace a grounding effect.
While in child’s pose, you can play around with the positioning and gently massage the third eye chakra into the mat as a way of releasing any built-up tension in the headspace and embodying self-awareness. Choose this pose as a little breather anytime you need and see it as an invitation to return to the present moment.
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