How to yoga at home effectively …
For many of us, a regular yoga practice may be a difficult thing to establish.
Here are some tips to help you get started.
1. Create a comfortable spot for your yoga practice
Try and find a spot where it’s peaceful and quiet, with as much space around you as possible. An empty piece of wall can be handy too since the wall is a great prop. If you like, it can be nice and even helpful to create some atmosphere with a candle or a stick of incense.
2. Get your yoga accessories
All you really need is a yoga mat, preferably non-slip. The yoga mat market is huge but it’s worth paying a little more for a good quality mat that suits your needs and will last a long time.
Other useful props and substitutions:
Blocks (use books or even cans from your pantry - Kmart has cheap blocks too)
Bolster (use pillows off your bed)
Cushion
Blanket
Eye pillow (use a cloth or piece of clothing over your eyes)
3. Stay safe, prevent injury
This is one tip with no shortcuts. Always watch your boundaries and especially be mindful of your body’s vulnerable areas. Particularly vulnerable areas are knees, hips, spine and neck. If you feel any painful sensations, adjust, soften, come out of the pose if you need to. Don’t force or push.
Be especially mindful during transitions between poses or when moving in or out of poses – these are moments of a potential risk of injury because we tend to pay less attention to our alignment.
4. Choose your yoga style / routine
Check in “What do my body and mind need?”
Something active like flow to get the juices flowing? Or perhaps something more soft and restorative, to quiet your body and mind? The more you do yoga, the more you learn the effects of different practices and the more you learn to recognise what it is your body and mind need at different times.
Don’t get stuck in reading too many class descriptions. The nature of the mind is to look for the perfect class to solve everything. That class doesn’t exist; you have to make it yourself.
5. Always relax with Savasana
It is really important to give your body time to relax in Savasana after a practice. The nervous system needs time to assimilate the benefits it has gained during the practice. You can otherwise feel unnecessarily wired after a yoga practice, especially after an intense yoga class.
6. Practice yoga regularly
Even once a week is beneficial! Three times a week is great, every day is great too. What works for you? If it’s very important for you to achieve goals, then it is much better to set a goal of practicing three times a week, being able to do it and feeling proud of yourself, than to set a goal to practice every day and feeling bad if you do only three times a week. A feeling of failure usually just makes you skip practices even more. So, be honest, set realistic goals, and do what you can. A 10 minute yoga practice is still a practice and definitely counts.