One of the reasons I love to do yoga so much is that it’s so good for your physical and mental wellbeing. Between work, friends, family, my boyfriend and my own hobbies, I find it quite difficult to put time aside for myself. You know, to just chill, destress and clear my mind so that I can process everything else happening in my life – whether it’s positive or negative, or somewhere in between.
Doing yoga kind of covers off all those things. It helps me to focus my breathing and my mind, and somehow puts things into perspective. I used to only do yoga after work which would calm me down after a stressful or busy day. It meant that when I got home, I could really enjoy and focus on doing the things I love like reading or even just chatting to my housemates. I enabled me to be present.
When I started to doing yoga in the morning a couple of times a week, I could really see the difference in how I responded to my day. Rather than assuming the worst in everyone’s intent or just feeling overwhelmed by meeting my work deadlines, I felt calm. It would take a lot for something to phase me. It set my mentality for the day – kind of like waking up on the right side of the bed, I was assuming positive intent, I wasn’t taking actions and reactions personally. Overall my day was a lot brighter!
The problem is, time. During winter we complain about dark and cold mornings. It’s hard to get out of bed, especially after you’ve just spent the whole night getting warm. During the spring and summer, we want to run a muck after work and enjoy the sun… or at least more light. Maybe you’re good at waking up (even in the winter), but you work late, you’ve got kids, or you didn’t get a good night’s sleep. There are so many things that could make it hard to find the time in your morning or evening to do yoga. But there’s a trick; a way to get around this.
You don’t have to practice yoga for a full hour. You don’t even have to practice for 45-minutes or 30-minutes. There are no rules. I mean, maybe there are rules, I actually have no idea. If I find there is a rule saying you must practice for a certain number of minutes, I’ll let you know. But as far as I’m aware, you can practice for as long or as little as you want or can. Some days you may have time to do a 60-minute practice with 15-minutes of savasana, some days you may not have more than 15-minutes to do yoga. Don’t punish yourself for that! If you make time for yourself, any time at all, then that is great!
That was one of my challenges for 2019 – make time, any time, to do yoga 5 days a week. Completing my YTT made sure I successfully achieved that! But it also proved to me that it is possible. It’s all about balance and priorities. It boiled down to me making myself a priority, and actually it has a had a really positive impact on how I spend my time with my friends and family now.
In the past, I’ve relied on the brilliance of Yoga with Adriene for my morning yoga. The great thing with her yoga is I can put on YouTube, and find the right length and style session for me. Sunrise yoga, 15-minute yoga, yoga to stretch my muscles after Barre. Whatever I need, Adriene pretty much has it. I love her style – she’s natural and a bit of goofball sometimes, much like myself. Now I feel much more comfortable doing a free flow in my living room, or if I have the time, I head out and join a morning class.
See where you are at and what works for your schedule and current experience in yoga. Give her YouTube channel a try and let me know what you think. I’m keen to know which yoga programme you like.