This One Thing Made My Self-Consciousness in Yoga Completely Disappear

I was having one of those days—slept through my alarm, woke up in a panic, rushed through teeth-brushing and finger-combing my hair before I finally sat my ass down at my desk, flung open my laptop, and became completely overwhelmed by the million things to do at work. And the day didn’t slow down from there.

That evening, I arrived at the yoga studio in a crumpled state, wearing wrinkled yoga leggings (I didn’t even know yoga leggings *could* wrinkle?) and a bun so messy it couldn’t be considered a bun.

And then I realized I had my glasses on instead of my contacts.

I’ve worn glasses since I was nine years old. I remember the car ride back home from the eye doctor, seeing vivid shapes, colors, and textures for the first time outside the window. “You don’t even need glasses,” my older brother teased from the front seat. “You just think they’re cool!” Although I did think glasses were cool (I can thank the first Harry Potter movie for that), I still needed them to see clearly. By high school, I was wearing contact lenses every day as the definition of “cool” had changed.

Now that I’m in my 30s and the things that I consider cool are the things I actually like (finally!), I wear my glasses and contacts pretty much interchangeably. But contacts feel much less restrictive during yoga and other workout classes. Which is why I found myself stressing as to how, exactly, I was supposed to practice Standing Forward Bend or Child’s Pose without having to constantly push the bridge of my glasses up my sweaty face.

Practicing Yoga Without My Glasses

Just as the teacher was stepping onto her mat at the front of the room, I took off my glasses and placed them at the top of my mat, hoping I could at least see enough that I wouldn’t crunch them with my foot while stepping through from Down Dog.

This particular studio had a long wall of mirrors that students faced during class. For better or worse, we were privy to what we looked like in most seated and standing poses—and what other people looked like, for that matter. That all changed when I removed my glasses. I could no longer make eye contact with myself or awkward accidental eye contact with anyone else in the mirror. I couldn’t see which students took an easier or more challenging variation of Tree Pose. I couldn’t compare myself to the most flexible person in the class, which often incites an inner wistful longing for the days when I was far more bendy than I am now.

Basically, I couldn’t look and stare and evaluate and judge and internalize and reminisce because I literally couldn’t see anything clearly that wasn’t 12 inches from my face. Since my outer world was obscured, my inner world grew tenfold. It was like time-lapsed footage of a flower blooming.

I very quickly became aware of all of these inner facets that I’m usually too distracted to notice. I adjusted myself in poses based on how my body felt in each position and not because of what I looked like or what everyone else was doing. I didn’t remain in a posture longer than felt comfortable because I saw my yoga teacher looking at me and felt a weird urge to impress her. And more than anything, I finally had enough space between me and my thoughts to realize I’d done all these mental gymnastics in the first place.

Sometimes you don’t feel quite how heavy your baggage is until you set it down. That’s what practicing yoga without my glasses on felt like.

The experience wasn’t perfect. Despite the fact that I was already familiar with most of the poses the teacher cued, I still looked to her instinctively as a model. But the fact that she looked like a watercolor painting left out in the rain made it impossible for me to tell whether she was tucking her toes in Cat Pose.

There was also some residual anxiety. So much of human communication is nonverbal. Even though it was unlikely that the teacher or another student would try to inaudibly communicate something to me that I absolutely needed to know during class, I still wondered whether I was missing out. A kind smile from the teacher in Warrior 1? A shared look of commiseration with another student after Plank? I was on my own unspectacled island.

Seeing Things More Clearly

Despite its drawbacks, I still felt as though I’d had a truly transformative experience. So the next morning I eagerly scoured the internet for conversations, research, or any signs that others had similar experiences. Is anyone else feeling completely liberated as a result of not wearing their prescription glasses or contacts?

I first arrived, as many do, at a Reddit thread. One person asked whether anyone else takes their glasses off to relieve anxiety. Their blurry vision, they explained, makes it impossible for them to lock eyes with anyone and helps them feel more relaxed and “IDGAF when around strangers.” Others agreed; another person even called removing their glasses a “cheat code” to help with their nerves in large groups.

There is scientific research to support the idea of closing off one or more of the five senses to feel more grounded and present. One study found that closing your eyes “saves cognitive resources.” In other words, when your brain doesn’t need to process visual information, it can focus on other things.

“For some people, there is a very strong correlation between their vision and mental health,” says Robin Sapossnek, OD, FCOVD, FNORA, neuro-optometrist at Holistic Vision in Jenkintown, PA. “In general when stressed, people tend to over-focus and over-aim their eyes, causing them to ignore the periphery and focus on their clear central vision,” she says. This effectively allows us to see what is in front of us and recognize faces and details of our surroundings. Over-focusing our vision, according to Sapossnek, can also cause people to “ignore [what’s happening in] their body.”

It seems as though the same reasoning would apply to closing our eyes when we meditate, or even experiences such as sensory isolation rooms in which multiple senses are muted simultaneously with the intention of ushering in a meditative state. When we eliminate external stimuli, research suggests, it may be possible to regulate the nervous system and feel more at ease. This might explain why, when I removed my glasses, I was better able to tune out the details of which I’m normally hyper-conscious of in yoga class.

Teachings in yoga support this very experience—specfically pratyahara, which is the fifth of the eight limbs of yoga. It’s often translated as “withdrawal of the senses,” and encourages limiting outside distractions to support inner growth.

Of course, removing glasses or contacts during yoga isn’t for everyone. “It’s too general a suggestion to make for the general population,” says Sapossnek. “Whether to do so would be best decided individually.” It’s possible that my experience practicing yoga without glasses was so positive because my myopia, or near-sightedness, isn’t severe, Sapossnek adds.

Though I still consider it a profound realization that my blurry vision could be a portal to my innermost world, I haven’t practiced yoga like that since.

The only time I allow myself to not see clearly is before bed, when I opt to listen to an audiobook or a guided meditation. Sometimes, instead of closing my eyes, I let myself gaze into mid-air without focusing on any object in particular, which is easier to do when I can’t make out what, exactly, any of the objects are.

It pains me to say it, but perhaps my brother had a point all those years ago. Although glasses or contacts help me read, drive, and recognize faces, maybe I don’t need them for the quiet moments I spend with myself, when I want to tune out the rest of the world and finally give myself a break.