by Kara-Leah Grant
Since stopping regular coffee drinking back in 2013, I have become fastidious about never drinking coffee before practicing or teaching yoga. Since I practice every day, and teach often, there are very rare windows when caffeine is an option for me.
At a recent summer festival, I realised how deeply this belief I have about the importance of not having caffeine in the system when practicing and teaching was ingrained.
A couple of hours before I was teaching a class, I bumped into my teaching assistant sipping on a coffee cup.
I was aghast and before I could stop myself burst out with;
I hope that’s not coffee! We’re teaching in two hours!
She looked at me sideways.
Yes. It is. I needed a pick-me-up.
Now, I was the one teaching the class, but my assistant would also be working with students. I realised I had assumed that there was no way she would drink coffee before doing this. Her response indicated to me that it had never crossed her mind there was any issue with having caffeine in the system before assisting.
I walked away wondering…
Had I gone too far? Had I become dogmatic and puritanical about coffee and yoga?
Or was I sensing something important that many other teachers and practitioners weren’t aware of?
Research was required.
I hit my book case and pulled out a number of books I thought might make comment on coffee including Beryl Bender Birch’s Power Yoga, The Kundalini Yoga Experience and Donna Farhi’s Teaching Yoga. The only mention of coffee I could find was in Beryl’s book on page 60, and then it was limited to the medical impact of coffee, which can vary widely from person to person.
No mention in the others that I could see – not even Donna’s book!
I turned to The Hatha Yoga Pradipika and flicked through. Unfortunately, the issue of using this 16th century text to base anything on quickly became clear. This particular text advocates avoiding bad people, fires, women, early morning baths and travelling – especially at the beginning of practice. And suggests living in a rat-free hut with a small door. It’s difficult to separate out what aspects of the text are culture and time specific and which aspect are universal and infinite.
The Yoga Sutras are clear about cleanliness in suacha, one of the five niyamas. Yogis are meant to imbibe only pure food, including no meat and intoxicants. However I couldn’t find any elucidation on coffee in particular, or on why it might be contrary to the yogic path. Probably because coffee was only introduced into India in the 18th and 19th century when the British arrived!
It was time to turn to Mr. Google and see what he knew. Armed with a catch-phrase I’d spotted on Instagram when I got into a discussion with a close friend about coffee and teaching, I hit the search button.
“No coffee, no prana!”
Or so said Pattabhi Jois, apparently.
I read through almost ten different articles and blogs about this ‘No Coffee, No Prana’ and why Pattabhi might have said it and what it possibly meant.
Apparently, in the early Mysore days, Pattabhi Jois’s wife would put her head into the room after practice and ask:
“Coffee?”
It appears that Pattabhi had no issue with coffee, and used to insist that his grandson Sharath drink it before practice.
Yet as Paul Mitchell Gold writes in his article More Ashtanga Myths: Coffee Prana and Rajasic Practice
It’s perfectly clear that, as a strong stimulant, coffee is very rajasic. As such, it would seem to be an obvious thing to avoid in one’s yoga practice since it can cause mental disturbance and agitation. So, I wanted to share a few thoughts on coffee.
First, a moment to define rajasic. In yoga philoshopy, all matter, gross and subtle, is composed of combinations of three qualities called gunas. Sattva is the principle of understanding, lucidity and peacefulness. Rajas is the principle of change, movement and dynamism. Lastly, tamas is the principle of inertia, dullness and ignorance. The entire process of yoga practice is to increase our sattvic nature while decreasing and mitigating the effects of rajas and tamas. Rajas and tamas, however, are not intrinsically bad. As examples, we couldn’t get anything done without rajas and we couldn’t sleep without tamas. It’s all a matter of balance and the way in which rajas and tamas can be obstacles to yoga practice and our spiritual evolution.
Gregor Maehle, in his book Ashtanga Yoga: The Intermediate Series, is also cautious about coffee-drinking yoga students:
“Coffee is a stimulant that mobilizes and expels prana that otherwise is used to stabilize the pelvis. This is not a moralistic statement but is based on observation. Over the years, most of my students who had a tendency to have a twisted or imbalanced pelvis were those who insisted on continuing their coffee habit. Decaffeinated coffee or tea does not appear to have the same destabilizing effect.” (Footnote no. 16 on page 125)
Greg is one of the few people I’ve found that comments on any relationship between coffee and prana.
Apparently, Krishnamacharya drank five cups of coffee a day (he once worked on a coffee plantation).
And when Pattabhi Jois and Iyengar got back together for a catch-up, what did they do (according to this account)? Drink coffee!
Confused yet? So was I! So I took a break from writing, went and taught a class, and then headed to my favourite local cafe, Tay Street Cafe for a coffee.
I don’t drink coffee often anymore and I wanted to take a more direct, experiential approach to this article. So I ordered a single shot soy flat white with lots of cinnamon. If you know anything about Ayurveda… milky with lots of cinnamon is the best way to mitigate the negative impacts of coffee on your system.
So I’m sipping coffee.
And I’m contemplating this extract from an article on Kino’s website Sharath in Copenhagen, Coffee in Ashtanga and a Strong Mind.
Sharath quoted Yoga Sutra 2.48: Tato Dvandva-anabhighatah, that states that when the yogi’s mind is strong, peace is maintained in the face of opposites such as pleasure and pain or attachment and aversion.
In order to avoid getting hooked into the cycle of suffering the equanimous mind is a crucial development along the spiritual path of yoga.
If you are always running towards pleasure, running from pain, fighting against aversion and fighting for attachment then the very motion of your actions will fuel the wheels of karma and further bind you into conditioned existence.
But if your mind is strong and you consciously choose your path as appreciation, joy and gratitude for every sip of life, then your freedom is already evident in each moment both in your practice and in your life.
This tells me more than everything I’ve read so far on coffee and yoga. Here’s what I know about coffee and yoga.
Coffee impacts our nervous system.
When we teach yoga, we are in effect creating a “group nervous system” (Shiva Rea calls it entrainment). In essence, our nervous system regulates with the nervous system of everyone else in the group.
If we teach with an agitated nervous system – rajas – then we are contributing rajas or agitation to the group nervous system. This is contrary to the role of a yoga teacher, which is to support the student in becoming more sattvic.
Therefore, if you as a teacher care about the impact of your nervous system upon your students, you will refrain from coffee before teaching.
Some mitigating factors. If you are very tamas before drinking coffee, it is possible that the coffee won’t bring you into a state of rajas, but will instead make you more sattvic. Possibly. Do not use this as an excuse. Being very tamas means barely being able to drag yourself off the couch.
When it comes to practicing yoga after drinking coffee, the same process applies. We practice to bring ourselves into a sattvic state of mind.
Increasing rajas before practice through caffeine makes this process far more difficult. That said, if you’re getting up at 4am to do your practice on a cold winter’s day, perhaps caffeine counteracts strong tamas. Perhaps!
The correct course of action distills down to self-inquiry (svadhyaya) and total honesty (satya)about the impact of caffeine on one’s system, and one’s own attachment or addiction to caffeine.
I’ve almost finished my small single shot and my state of being has gone from sattvic to rajas.
I feel slightly agitated and have so much energy I’m going to explode out of my seat. This is the impact that coffee has on me now. It’s like a line of speed. This is why I don’t drink it very often, and why I never drink it before practice or teaching.
However, other people don’t have such a strong reaction to caffeine. Neither did I though… until I took a break for ten days, allowed my system to reset itself, and then tried caffeine again. (Read that article on coffee and addiction here.)
From that blank slate, I was able to perceive with clarity the true impact of caffeine on my system.
Yes, I could have habituated myself to it again… but what for? Because one thing I’m noticing with my yoga practice, fifteen+ years in, is that I am slowly but surely being purified. My diet is purifying, the intoxicants I ingest are purifying, my thoughts, deeds… everything… it’s all purifying.
And as I purify, I become more sensitive and more attuned to the subtle nuances of energy and substances.
Which is why I was horrified when my assistant was drinking coffee before assisting me. From my perspective, this was an irresponsible action to take that dishonoured both the practice and the students.
However, my assistant isn’t in the place I’m in. Coffee may not affect her in the same way at all. She wasn’t teaching the class, only assisting. From her perspective, there was no issue. I was the one being dogmatic.
The only issue with coffee and yoga arises when we as teachers and students become attached and addicted to our caffeine fix and so will rationalise, justify and defend our right to drink coffee.
I see and hear a lot of that.
So here’s my challenge to you. If you’re reading this article then obviously you are curious about the impact of coffee on your practice. I suggest you forget about looking externally for the answer, because there are no answers out there. (And as I found on Google, it’s confusing as all hell.)
Instead, take the most yogic path possible and work with self-inquiry and experimentation. Here’s a few krama (stages) to work with:
Courageous as all hell and ready to get to the truth about you & Coffee?
- Try ten days with no caffeine. You need to clear your system out completely first.
- Then, from that place of purity, make yourself or order the most beautiful coffee ever.
- When it arrives, turn the act of consuming it into a sacred meditation.
- Start with staring at the coffee deeply for at least a minute. Admire it’s beauty.
- Smell the coffee and notice the impact on your system. Don’t taste it yet.
- Smell it a couple of times, and sit with the smell.
- Finally, take one small sip and swirl it in your mouth, tasting every last molecule.
- Sit with that small sip for at least a minute or two and see if you can discern what’s happening in your nervous system, and in your body.
- Feel into it. Take another sip.
- Drink the coffee exceedingly slowly, feeling each sip as it permeates your body.
- By the end of the coffee you should have a very clear idea of the impact of caffeine on your system. Meditate on that.
Nervous as all hell but still curious about coffee?
- Restrict your coffee drinking to AFTER you practice and/or teach yoga.
- Notice any attachment or strong desire arising to consume coffee BEFORE practice and/or teaching.
- Notice the justifications of the mind.
- See if you can determine how attached/addicted you are to coffee by how strongly your mind reacts, justifies, defends, kicks back.
Fiercely clinging to your coffee and don’t give a fuck?
- Notice that.
- Go read up on the Kleshas.
- Inquire into your clinging. Why is coffee so important? Why does it have so much power over you? What are you so afraid of? Who is the boss of you?
- What are you defending? And who is it that’s defending?
Let me know how it goes for you.
And if you know of any other sources referencing the impact of caffeine on prana, please leave a comment with a link. I want to know!
Wow.. thank you so much for combining all these different articles and books and adding your own experiences. I personally feel very ‘tight’ in my practice when I drink coffee.
Interesting article – Sharath is Jois´grandson though!”
I always drink a coffee in the morning – II don´t feel it has any negative effects but in the spirit of your investigation maybe I´ll try to observe what happens if I dont drink that coffee.
Thank you for all your effort
Michelle
Another increase of knowledge. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and ideas. it’s very helpful and inspiring.
Such a great read with links to both the father of Ashtanga as well as some of the Yogis and Yoginis of our current age.
I never drink coffee before morning practice as it just feel super counter-active to the state of mind I’m trying to cultivate through each step of my practice. Buuuut I do have 1 white coffee every day and I absolutely love it – it never makes me jump of energy or agitated it just makes me feel soooo satisfied (!)
“10 days off” challenge is now in the back of my mind – is there a reason for this amount of time from your perspective Kara-Leah?
Thank you, I’ve shared your article on my blog Facebook as well!
Hey Line,
Lovely to read your comment 🙂
The only reason I named 10 Days was because that was the original length of time I took off coffee, which totally changed my experience of what it felt like to drink it. So I know it’s long enough to de-condition someone to caffeine. Although everybody will be different… But it feels like it needs to be longer than a week. And ten days still feels do-able for those who really enjoy their coffee!
Much joy,
KL
I have been exploring yoga seriously for about 8 years and that included one entire year with no caffeine at all, despite the fact that I worked as a barista! I now drink coffee about 3 times a week and green tea almost every day, although never before practising. My experience has been that caffeine does make me more rajasic, however, as long as I can channel that energy positively and creatively, then there is really no clash with a yogic lifestyle. If anything, I feel more free now, as I don’t constantly need to restrain myself from caffeine, nor do I feel the need to judge others who use it. Maybe one day the desire will pass on its own, but for now I find that pursuit of awareness is more useful than the pursuit of supposed purity.
Hey Natalie,
Thank you so much for sharing your experience and perspective – it’s such a valuable way to learn. I love how you clarify between the pursuit of awareness versus the pursuit of purity. It’s such an important point. It feels to me like ‘purity’ is a natural by-product of ever-increasing awareness, but if forced on it’s own, creates all kinds of internal stickiness and conflict. There could be an entire other article in that!
Many blessings,
KL
I fully agree with you KL. I feel coffee is very addictive and tempting to many as it picks them up but it does so by robbing the imtenal organs of juice. This is essentially what all drugs do when they give you their highs. Coffee also pumps you up and activates your adrenal reflex which if done again and again will weaken your ligaments and make you prone to injuries.
Of course we are only human and sometimes need help to get thru the day, I don’t really believe anyone with a serious yoga practice will be so tamasic that they can’t get to their mat without a coffee, more likely that they’re so rajasic that they’re burning out and need to nourish their yin or deep inner energy. Perhaps if you find yourself in this category, wane yourself down off the caffeine, take high dose vit c to help heal your adrenals and take more time for rest, yoga nidra, pratyahara (withdrawal practices) and meditation. You might need to look at your yoga practice on the mat and see if it’s too rajistic, try not to try so hard, incorporate some slower flows and honour your monthly cycles.
Its too easy to get all pumped up on life and coffee but I’m the end it will leave you hollow. You need to be your own best friend first don’t let coffee take that place.
Cheers. PS I like decaf mocha haha
Hey Chaitanya,
Thank you so much for such a detailed and nuanced comment. You give some great insight and suggestions, which really add to the article.
Many blessings,
KL
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on yoga and coffee. I’m a passionate freediver and peace of mind and body is the most important thing. We also have the coffee discussion. Some are for coffee some are against. I have seen people dive to -90+ meters on a light breakfast and coffee… And believe me, you need to be utterly calm to dive that deep… Today, I’m not for or against. Instead I believe in harmony and balance. We all know when we are in balance and when we are not. That is the important thing. And back to freediving – I have great dives when I’m in balance and that is independent of me have coffee or not.
Great perspective Jakob – thanks for sharing. It’s what I’m coming to realise more and more too… all substances have a different impact on us depending on what’s going on in our systems at that time. Sometimes they nourish, sometimes they poison. Sometimes they bring us into balance, sometimes they take us out of balance.
I do like your blog posts, and share your desire for purity. However, I find it strange that you purify your body and insist even of moderating coffee, but see no need to purify your language, which, after all, reflects your state of mind and affects the minds of others. I guess my blood pressure was raised way more by reading an occasional f-word in the middle of your posts than by drinking my morning coffee (yes, I drink it with lots of milk and cinnamon) . I invite you to perform a similar exercise as the one you prescribed for coffee to see how it feels to use expletives . I’d say it doesn’t ‘taste good’, especially coming from the mouth of a yogi aspiring to enlightenment.. With respect, m
Hey Marta,
Many thanks for your comment. I understand exactly how it feels to use expletives, and consciously choose to use them. I feel the energy & power they contain and when that is called for, that’s the word I turn to. It’s something I’ve explored in conversation with a few close friends and fellow yogis, and it is something that comes up periodically on this website when I get comments from readers like yourself.
As for purification… right now I seem to be in a phase of recognising that the desire for purification itself may be symptomatic of a deeper underlying psychological impulse based on fear (you might call it a samskara). YOu can read more about that in my article How I Dropped the Ball on Day 338 of my 1000 Day Practice.
My sense of it now is that purity is something that comes about because of what has already happened internally. One can’t force that internal shift by imposing purity on the system. Everything we ingest through the 19 mouths of consciousness impacts us. Greater levels of awareness mean the purification happens naturally. Rather than seeking purity, the focus becomes that of becoming more and more aware.
This is the gayest shit I’ve read all week.
In what context are you using the word ‘gay’?
I sincerely agree with this post after giving up Coffee for the past two months. I was drinking coffee everyday for countless years and finally, through YTT, I realized how much it made an impact on my nervous system and overall health. Thank you for this lovely article.
Concetta
I drank a cup of coffee before reading your post, almost finished reading, almost, but wasn’t twirly enough, you definitely shouldn’t drink coffee, my mind is always on frenzy, but even for me this was too much? I think the only people allowed to drink coffee are the sattvic ones, because of their tendency to have an activated shushumna they less likely captivate people, so they need that rajasic kick to care about wordly affairs and for interaction with people. You can read about that in Swami Muktibodhanandas Swara Yoga as cited by Gregor Maehle in his Pranayama The Breath Of Yoga.
Hey!
Great article. I start practicing yoga on a daily basis 14 years ago. Stopped coffee few months before it. I really agree to this content. All my respect for such a dedicated work and collecting all this valuable information!!!
I also feel that the immediate effect is increase of Rajas, but then after a short while the Rajas is being transformed into Tamas (a reason why coffee drinkers will feel a need for another glass).
Keep it up! 🙂
A very interesting and well studied subject, thank you for taking the work out of it for me. I have been practising yoga for more then ten years and have only ever been to a class twice! I would love to go to more classes but live in a country where yoga is only just surfacing and classes are starting up in the larger towns. I study on the Net everything I can to follow a yogic life style but I really had no idea coffee was a problem so thank you for letting me know all of this. I have a coffee every morning once at work but then I can do without it as well. I love the flavour but it doesnt affect me and I can go for long periods without having it. I have watched how it affects others around me but its never affected me and I realise I can do without it with no problem. I normally drink herbal teas and never have milk or sugar but I love chai and often make it for myself but I dont take well to milk so often leave it out.
Coffee actually clears the mind. Its like a reset switch. Charges up the lower systems. What you do with that energy is up to you. Peace x
Thank you so much for your work, Im sitting here journaling my coffee maya as I do my Kundalini homework for Level 1 for the month and drinking coffee. I know it affects me. I know it affects my breath. But ,I really didn’t understand the subtleties behind it regarding the Gunas. The paragraph that sealed the decision to drop it for me was how my nevous system inbalance could affect the group conscious. Wow, that makes complete sense to me.
The cotrolled coffee drinking meditation is brilliant, but intuitively, I know what the answer will be. I’ll justify loading the Starbucks card and doing the grande dark drip with 2 shots and 2 pumps of peppermint again, that’s how I roll.
Thanks again
Satnam
Thank you for your detailed article. Very well structured and insightful. Spoken as a true teacher by merely pointing the way, with no compulsion.
Great article, thank you. I was struggling with whether to have one this morning so decided to look inside, then found this while drinking. I added cinnamon to it, thanks for that too!
Thank you for your research and personal perspective on this topic of coffee consumption and its effect on teaching and practicing yogasana. My own experience is that the more consistently I consume coffee the less I seem to witness the regulation of prana (yama) and I somewhat disregard my any focus on prtyahara (looking at this limb as the stopping of food to support the withdrawing of the senses). When I know I will consume coffee, I mediate more in the morning and do less asana. The longer term effects of coffee consumption seem to produce heat in the mouth and throat area which I believe adds to the ragistic state of “pushing” the energy resulting in the illusion of detoxifying which is really just sweating more when my yogasana practice is more active. I would not know the long term effects of this cycle of combining coffee and yogasana – pranayama. It may disrupt udan pran (coordinating vayu based in the larynx) from saman pran (digestive) not being as naturally active. This subtle aspects of the prana vayus is intuitive I throw this concept out to you all for experiment. Namaste
Yogi Bhajan was very against coffee (and all stimulants), though tea seemed to be acceptable. He even went as far as to say coffee is a poison for the body. It’s become clear that I am addicted to coffee. I have a French press and a jar of organic coffee that I am craving right now as I type. Coffee does have some benefits on the mind and the liver, but I’m not sure if it’s worth the stress on the adrenals. Coffee is acidic and quite hard on the teeth and digestive system.
yep, roger that one
Hi! Great article and enjoyed the high quality comments as well. I even think a rewrite using the new perspectives would make it even better!
For me Coffee tightens me up. I am als easily stuck in a hyperfocus, which is not always desired.
I am thinking of switching to Matcha again. It has a pick-me-up, but without the jitteryness. I am not even sure why I ever started drinking coffee again..
Great write on coffee consumption and practice. ( I practice Tibetan Bon Tsa Lung).
I know what you are saying is true. I experience strong keshlas after coffee. But I suffer various degrees of allergy and drinking coffee really quells some mild symptoms allowing me to cut out antihistamines. I spend a while after coffee laughing at myself while also watching my mind put on a crazed emotional and conceptual circus.
Thank you.
Thank you for this article ??.
Thank you for this amazing, full of knowledge article! All my yoga teachers and Ayurveda specialists friends tell that coffe is squeezing from you your tapas. So instead of using it for good, you take it out while drinking coffe which is considered the violation.
I still wasn’t sure as everyone around me drinks it. Guess coffe without caffeine is an answer!
Thank you once again for your work!
Who is spiritual teacher of Kara ?
As swami SatyaNanda saraswathi says “ a yogi is one who can eat anything with a yogic attitude” stillness, vairagya and Viveka in all one’s actions. Not having any negation attached to the moment. Negation leads to toxicity ?
Really well written. Indeed coffee has a special place in society. Many are unaware of the power and addictiveness of the substance, and for many it has become the equivalent of oxygen.
For me, coffee as a stimulant muddies the waters and takes me away from the subtleties of life that I like to get closer to. Along the lines of the effects on your nervous system you noticed.
Thanks again! Namaste