05/10/2025
Can you tell the difference between pain and discomfort? Not many of us can - our somatic awareness is surface-level, and we either ignore our pain, or over-react to our discomfort. However, knowing the difference can deepen your yoga practice, and improve your life.
Neither pain nor discomfort are particularly pleasant sensations. These two words are often used interchangeably, but carry very different messages. While pain is something to move away from immediately, discomfort can actually be helpful in your yoga practice.
Discomfort can feel like tightness, heaviness, or pressure. You might experience it more as an emotion, a feeling that you want to wriggle, or distract; that you’d prefer to be doing something else.
Pain can be sharp, stabbing, or radiating. It’s an urgent sensation, one that you feel the need to respond to immediately.
When you are wise enough to listen to the body’s messages of pain, and adjust accordingly, your risk of injury is reduced, your healing is supported, and trust in your mind-body connection is strengthened.
In our Yin classes especially, you learn to tell the difference. Often, when sitting with discomfort, you’ll notice that the discomfort waxes and wanes, or moves from one spot in the body to another. Sitting with this discomfort builds your mental resilience.
Next time you practice yoga, you might listen to those little messages of discomfort - the tightness, the heaviness, the pressure - and choose to sit with them, rather than avoid them. Learn to discern between and respond to pain and discomfort, and watch your resilience rise.
