Using the 8 Limbs for your Personal Wellbeing

When To Use This Guide

This guide is for you, not your students. It offers a way to use yoga's own eight-limbed system as a framework for your personal wellbeing across every stage of a teaching life, so the practice that sustains others sustains you too.

Why Your Wellbeing Matters

A depleted teacher cannot pour from an empty cup, and the profession makes depletion easy. Teaching is physical labour, emotional labour, and self-employment admin all at once, frequently for modest pay and at unsociable hours. Looking after yourself is not indulgence or a luxury to reach "one day." It is what keeps you teaching well, teaching safely, and teaching for the long haul. Your own practice is the foundation everything else stands on.

The Eight Limbs as a Wellbeing Framework

You already have the most complete wellbeing system ever devised - you just spend most of your time giving it away. Patanjali's eight limbs weren't designed only for students on a mat; they're a full operating system for a human life. Turned inward, they become a practical, honest audit of how you are actually doing: how you live (yamas and niyamas), how you move (asana), how you breathe (pranayama), how you rest and focus your attention (pratyahara, dharana, dhyana), and how you find stillness (samadhi). The rest of this guide walks through them as tools for your own care.

Honest Self-Check: Where Are You Right Now?

Before the tools, a moment of honesty. Teaching can hide burnout well, because you're performing calm for a living. Notice, without judgement, whether any of these feel familiar:

Teaching more classes but practising less yourself.
Dreading a class you used to love.
Feeling resentful, flat, or "switched off" while teaching.
Injuries or niggles you keep teaching through.
Saying yes to every cover request out of fear of missing out.
Comparing yourself to other teachers online and coming up short.

None of these make you a bad teacher. They make you a human one. Naming them is the first act of self-care.

Asana: Reclaim a Practice That's Just Yours

Somewhere along the way, most teachers stop practising and start rehearsing and every time on the mat becomes class prep. Protect one practice a week that is purely yours, with a single rule: it generates nothing for class. No sequencing, no notes, no "I could use this." Move for no audience and no outcome. This is the difference between a practice and a job.

Remember too that demonstrating all day is an athletic workload with no rest built in. Treat yourself like the athlete you are: warm up, vary the load, and give yourself deload weeks. It is completely fine to teach a class without demonstrating a single pose.

Pranayama: Your Own Reset Button

You coach nervous-system regulation for a living - now use it on yourself, deliberately, not just as a demo. A few minutes of extended-exhale breathing between back-to-back classes, or in the car before you drive home, shifts you out of "on" mode and lets your own system settle. Build one small, non-negotiable breath practice into your day that exists only to reset you.

Pratyahara: Put the Room Down

Holding space is emotional labour. Without a way to set it down, you carry the room's grief, anxiety, and stories out of the door with you. Pratyahara - drawing your senses back in - is your discharge ritual. After class, take two quiet minutes to consciously come back to yourself before re-entering the world: a few breaths, a hand on the heart, a deliberate "that was theirs, this is mine." Small, but it stops the day's weight from accumulating.

Dharana & Dhyana: Guard Your Own Attention

The focus and stillness you teach are the first things to go when you're stretched thin and living in your phone. Your attention is a resource to protect, not just a skill to pass on. Notice where yours leaks - endless scrolling, comparison, admin creep into your evenings, and reclaim small pockets of genuine stillness that aren't about productivity or content. Meditating on your own behalf, with nothing to prepare and no one watching, is a radical act for a teacher.

The Yamas & Niyamas: Permission, Reframed

The ethical foundations are usually taught outward, toward others. Turn them inward and they become powerful permission slips:

Ahimsa (non-harm) applies to you too. Teaching through pain, exhaustion, or empty isn't noble, it's harm you'd never wish on a student.
Satya (truthfulness) means admitting when you're not okay, instead of performing fine.
Aparigraha (non-grasping) is permission to release the class, the student, or the role that no longer serves you, and to stop clutching at every opportunity from fear.
Santosha (contentment) is the antidote to the comparison and hustle that quietly erode teachers. Your worth is not your follower count or your fullest class.
Svadhyaya (self-study) is honest reflection on how you're really doing and the whole point of this guide.

These aren't rules to live up to. They're a foundation that gives you back to yourself.

The Money Piece: Aparigraha Is Not an Excuse to Be Broke

It's worth naming directly, because it wrecks more teaching careers than any injury. Non-attachment gets quietly twisted into a reason to undercharge, over-give, and feel guilty about money. But a teacher who can't pay their bills can't keep teaching, and burning out helps no one. Charging fairly for your skill and experience is ahimsa toward yourself. Financial sustainability isn't unspiritual; it's what lets you keep showing up.

Wellbeing Across the Seasons of a Teaching Life

Your needs change as your career does, and each stage carries its own quiet challenge:

The new teacher - over-giving, saying yes to everything, teaching for exposure. Your work: learn to say no and to value your time.
The established teacher - fully booked and quietly running on empty. Your work: protect rest and periodise your workload.
The plateau - the growth has stalled and resentment can creep in. Your work: reconnect with your own practice and learning, for you.
The seasoned teacher - navigating an ageing body, relevance anxiety, and questions of legacy. Your work: adapt how you teach, and honour experience over athleticism.

Wherever you are, the eight limbs meet you there.

Practical Tips

Daily:

☐ One small breath practice that's only for you.
☐ A conscious "put the room down" moment after teaching.
☐ Protect your sleep as fiercely as you protect your class times.

Weekly:

☐ One practice that generates nothing for class.
☐ At least one genuine rest day - no teaching, no prep.
☐ Notice and gently interrupt comparison when it shows up.

Ongoing:

☐ Review your rates and boundaries honestly, without guilt.
☐ Stay connected to peers, mentors, or a teacher of your own.
☐ Check in with the honest self-check list above.
☐ Seek proper support — physical or emotional — before you're forced to.

Frequently Asked Questions

I feel guilty prioritising myself when my students need me. Is that normal?

Very. But your students are best served by a teacher who is rested, present, and well. Looking after yourself is part of the job, not a distraction from it.

I've lost my own practice completely. Where do I start?

Small and selfishly. Ten minutes, no plan, nothing to teach afterwards. The goal is to remember what practising for yourself feels like, not to be impressive.

I think I might be burning out. What now?

Treat it as seriously as you'd treat a student's injury. Reduce load where you can, protect rest, talk to a mentor or peer, and seek support from a qualified professional if it's affecting your health. Pushing through is not a strategy.

Is it really okay to charge more / turn down work?

Yes. Sustainable boundaries and fair pay are what allow you to keep teaching. This is care for yourself and, ultimately, for everyone you'll go on to teach.

Good Practice Reminder

You entered this profession to help people feel better in their bodies and minds. You deserve exactly the same care you give away every day. The eight limbs were never meant to be a gift you only hand to others, they're a complete system for looking after a whole human life, including yours.

Use them for yourself. Rest without guilt, breathe on your own behalf, put the room down, charge fairly, and let your practice be yours again. A well-resourced teacher is not a selfish one. It's the only kind who lasts.

If you're struggling with your physical or mental wellbeing, please reach out to a qualified healthcare professional, a trusted mentor, or appropriate support services. Looking after the teacher matters just as much as looking after the class.