Mindfulness also roots out many of our usual thinking biases, she said, which should lead to better financial decision-making. One of those brain hiccups is the "negativity bias," in which negative events tend to impact our thinking much more than positive ones.
It also helps prevent the "sunk cost bias," which holds that if we have already put lots of money into something, we are unlikely to sell, even if the investment is a turkey.
A moment of mindfulness can save you years of retirement savings, too. Brad Barber and Terrance Odean, graduate college professors in California, found people are generally lousy at investing because of things like frequent trading and media influence.
In comparison, the more relaxed contingent of buy-and-hold investors beat frequent traders by 7 percent a year.
It Takes Two
But no matter how enlightened and relaxed your financial planner is, it is still your money. If you are the one who is stressed out and demanding action, an advisor might not be able to help.
That is why financial planner Bill Harris of Duxbury, Massachusetts, now starts many planning sessions by doing breathing exercises with his clients.
"It slows them down, and gets them in a different mindset," said Harris, who took up yoga a couple of years ago at the advice of his wife, who is also a planner. "They really appreciate it."
Michigan planner LaBrecque actually prefers clients who are into yoga like himself. "When there are two yogis in a room, you automatically get into it together," he said. "Yoga clients are easier to deal with - there is a mellowness about them."