The Yogic View of Phone Checking: Understanding Rajas, Mindfulness, and the Path Inward
This topic came up recently in the Embodied Path group call and I could tell that we all resonated with this challenge so I felt called to share more about the Yogic perspective and Yoga-based solutions for compulsive phone checking.
In classical yoga, every habit we repeat in the physical world begins first in the subtle world. The mind moves, energy follows, and the body acts out what has already taken form internally.
In our modern lives, one of the clearest examples of this principle is the impulse to check our phones. We reach for the device dozens—sometimes hundreds—of times a day, often without any conscious intention. From a yogic perspective, this isn’t simply a modern distraction. It is the external expression of an internal movement of rajas, the energetic quality that drives us outward, forward, and away from stillness.
Understanding this helps us transform the habit not through willpower, but through awareness and practice.
Rajas: The Energy That Moves Us Outward
In the Yoga Sūtras and the Haṭha teachings, rajas is the quality of restlessness, activity, seeking, grasping, and outward motion. Rajas scatters attention and pulls prāṇa away from the center.
The urge to check the phone is this rajasic movement taking physical shape.
It is the same energy that makes the mind jump from thought to thought, makes breath shallow, and makes it difficult to focus or sit in stillness. When rajas rises internally, it naturally expresses itself externally—often through impulsive phone use.
In other words: The reaching of the hand is the reaching of the mind. They are the same movement on different levels.
Interrupting the Rajasic Loop Through Dharana
In yoga, dharana—one-pointed concentration—is not about forcing the mind to be still. It is about interrupting the outward momentum of rajas long enough for clarity to return.
In moments when you feel the urge to check your phone, something subtle but powerful becomes possible:
You can pause.
You can breathe.
You can feel the impulse instead of obeying it.
This moment is dharana in real time.
Each interruption breaks the momentum of rajas and redirects the prāṇa inward. This is the essence of pratyāhāra: the gentle closing of the senses so the mind can settle.
Prāṇa and Attention Move Together
Classical yoga teaches:
Where prāṇa goes, the mind goes.
Where the mind goes, prāṇa follows.
Every time we shoot our attention outward—into notifications, messages, endless scrolling—our prāṇa follows. Over time, this contributes to increasing mental agitation, anxiety, and fatigue.
But when we take one conscious breath, one moment to anchor attention, the flow reverses. Prāṇa begins to move inward again, settling the nervous system and reducing the compulsion to seek stimulation.
Even a single slow exhale can completely shift the energetic pattern.
The Phone as a Modern “Dristi”
Humans naturally seek points of focus when the mind is unsettled. Traditionally, yoga offers drishti points: the tip of the nose, the thumb, a flame, a mantra, the breath.
Today, the phone has become a modern drishti—but instead of drawing the mind inward and steady, it pulls the mind outward into infinite stimulation.
Yoga asks us to reclaim our drishti.
Not by rejecting technology, but by choosing where we place our attention, and why.
The Samskāra of Phone Checking
In yoga psychology, repeated actions carve grooves in the mind called samskāras. The more often we check the phone without awareness, the deeper this pattern becomes.
But the opposite is also true:
Each moment of interruption—
Each conscious breath—
Each time you choose presence—
creates a new samskāra: the pattern of steadiness.
This is not self-improvement—it is spiritual rewiring.
Bahiranga and Antaranga: Working Externally and Internally
The Yoga Sūtras describe two levels of practice:
Bahiranga (outer practices) such as reorganizing your phone, turning off notifications, creating no-phone times.
Antaranga (inner practices) such as breath awareness, observing impulses, and practicing dharana when urges arise.
We need both.
Changing the external environment supports the mind, and changing the mind changes how we relate to the environment.
This is how modern habits become part of yogic practice—not through perfection but through consistent, compassionate awareness.
Moving From Rajas to Sattva
When the rajasic drive settles, yoga guides us toward sattva—clarity, calm, presence, and inner spaciousness. Phone use becomes intentional rather than compulsive. Focus improves. The nervous system steadies. The mind becomes capable of deeper meditation, inquiry, and rest.
Sattva is not about rejecting the world or the device.
It is about relating to them from steadiness instead of compulsion.
A Yogic Invitation
Next time you feel the urge to check your phone, try this simple practice:
Pause before acting.
Take one slow inhale and one slow exhale.
Ask: “What am I seeking right now?”
Decide consciously whether picking up the phone serves your intention.
This small interruption is a profound step on the yogic path.
It brings you back to yourself, back to your center, back to the quiet wisdom beneath the mind’s patterns.
Your attention is sacred.
Your prāṇa is precious.
And every moment you reclaim them is an act of yoga.
