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If you’re looking for a way to start (or restart) your yoga practice, consider this your detailed guide to getting started with yoga and becoming more mindful.
Yoga helps develop balance, calmness, and flexibility by allowing us to focus on our breathing and tuning us into our body. Moreover, it's suitable to everyone regardless of body type or lifestyle, and you don’t need to buy expensive clothes or even leave your house.
There are many ways you can start your yoga practice at home. Here are some of the best if you want to start a home yoga practice today, and improve your mindfulness in just seven minutes a day.
Six Best Ways To Get Started With Yoga
Here’re six best ways to get started with yoga, no matter your experience level:
1) Start with basic yoga poses
There’s no minimum required duration for practicing yoga and a few minutes of practice makes a difference.
If you’re nervous about getting started, don’t bite off more than you can chew by trying to commit several hours each day. Instead, start small with sustainable commitments that won’t scare you away from your practice.
To get you started, you might try committing to practicing just one pose and see how it feels.
Listen to your body as it tells you when it needs more exercise.. If you're used to 45-minute or hour-long workouts or yoga classes, there's no need to commit to more than a 20-minute online class if that’s what makes you feel good. The best place to start is Yoga with Adriene.
2) Check your alignment often as you work
If you’re practicing on your own, it’s important to make sure you’re in safe positions.
When you’re watching a video in an online class, don’t be afraid to rewind or pause the video so you can take a closer look at what’s happening. If you’re flowing on your own without an online class, cross-check your posture with books and websites.
When you want to see how you're doing, you can watch yourself practice in front of a mirror or record yourself with your phone or camera.
3) Stay safe by preventing injury
Be mindful of your body’s vulnerable areas, particularly your knees, hips, spine, and neck. If you feel any painful sensations while practicing yoga, adjust the pose, or come out of it entirely if you need to.
Warm up your body before attempting more advanced poses, and keep checking in if it feels fine to be in a pose.
Be especially mindful during transitions between poses or when moving in or out of poses — these are moments of a potential risk for injury — we tend to pay less attention to our alignment.
4) Choose a suitable yoga style
You can choose a flowing Vinyasa class to get the juices flowing or a restorative practice to quiet your body and mind.
The more you do yoga, the more you learn about the effects of different practices and how to recognize what your body needs at different times.
When you're looking for an online yoga class, don't get bogged down by reading too many class descriptions. The mind naturally wants to find the perfect class to solve all your problems. That perfect class doesn't exist; you have to make it yourself.
5) Practice Regularly
Even practising yoga once a week can be beneficial. If you do it three times a week, that's even better.
You might have to try things out to find what works best for you, but the most important part is that you enjoy doing it and are proud of yourself for sticking with it.
6) Create your own personal space
If you have room in your house for a dedicated yoga space, that's great. It can be helpful to have your yoga mat out and ready to go. However, most of us do not have the luxury of such a space.
If you can find a spot where it's peaceful and quiet, with as much space around you as possible, that's great. If you prefer to create some atmosphere with incense or candlelight, go for it.
Takeaway
If you're already a regular yogi who keeps up with your practice and has been doing yoga consistently for years, you may not find much of value in this article.
It would be wise to consider all your options before finding alternate ways to sustain your regular practice. However, if adding the practice of yoga to your life is something you’re interested in, there are many tools out there to help you.
