How and Why to Fit In Yoga

Who needs yoga? Probably everybody. How many of us are hunched over a computer all day at work? {raises hand} How many of us are hunched over with our smart phones? {raises hand} How many of us are runners that don’t cross-train or stretch nearly enough?

There is an endless list of the who and why we all need yoga. I started doing yoga on a regular basis due to an injury. I knew my flexibility was atrocious. I’ve always struggled with this. After trying too many different things to even count, desperately trying to find a cure to my knee issues, I turned to yoga. I thought maybe it would help. It couldn’t hurt, right?

I’ve said it before, but yoga is not my favorite thing in the world. I’d like to say I love it because in some ways I do love it. But mostly it’s something I make myself do because I know it’s good for me. I thought I would warm up to it after a year of yoga once a week but not so much. I’m still going because I know it helps my body–even if I haven’t fallen in love with it yet.

Someone said something to me recently that was kind of a lightbulb moment. They were talking about how older people don’t know how to fall and that’s why they fall and really hurt themselves and can’t get back up off the floor. Staying physically fit into your senior years can only benefit you. Ever since that was said to me I’ve wondered, where do I see myself at my grandmother’s age? Will I be able to get off the floor if I fall down? I like to think that when I’m in my 80’s I’ll still be walking, swimming and doing yoga. Gentle things that keep my body moving. That’s my hope anyways.

How Yoga Helped Me

As someone riddled with anxiety, I find myself holding my breathe throughout the day. I know this contributes to anxiety but it’s a hard habit to break because most of the time I don’t know I’m doing it. Yoga has helped remind me that I need to breathe. Duh!

My flexibility is improving. It’s not fantastic yet but it’s getting so much better!

The biggest change I’ve noticed is that I have much better stability. Poses that used to make me fall over are now easy. I LOVE Tree Pose. It’s one of my favorites.

My injury has improved. I cannot blame that entirely on yoga. I think the kettle bell training and focused weight training on trouble areas has contributed a lot but yoga has definitely helped.

I feel less anxious. I’m still working on harnessing that peaceful feeling when I leave the class. It’s still pretty fleeting, but it’s there!

How To Fit In Yoga

Making time to do yoga is hard. I get it. It’s low impact, it’s slow, you don’t burn as many calories. I am with you there on that. When I’m used to burning 700+ calories in a kettlebell class or 500+ calories running, burning 200 in an hour of slow moving yoga sounds boring and like a waste of time. I had to change my thinking on this and remind myself WHY I was doing yoga. Focus less on the calories, less on the burn, and focus on the benefits.

The good news is that you don’t need an expensive gym membership or yoga studio pass to do yoga. There are so many cheap and free ways to do it. (Check out this post as a good start: The 5 Yoga Poses You Should Do Every Morning.)

Do some yoga first thing in the morning. Even if it’s just 15-20 minutes of yoga practice, it’s better than nothing and it’s a good start to the day. It might even wake you up! (I don’t know about you, but I still need coffee!)

Get a yoga DVD from the library and practice at home.

Stream yoga videos on Netflix.

Buy a Groupon for a local yoga studio and go with a friend. I found that going to yoga with a friend in the beginning helped me stay motivated. I got to see her and she kept me from bailing.

Go to the yoga class at your gym after your workout. If you still can’t justify spending a whole hour doing yoga, try going to the first 30 minutes of yoga after you’re done working out. Use it as your cool-down/stretch time.

Google yoga videos. Or check out YogaToday – for $10 a month you get unlimited yoga classes. I’m actually considering checking this out because it would be nice to try and fit in some more yoga in between my regular classes.

Learn a few yoga poses and incorporate them into your daily routine. Get into the habit of doing some stretches at work. Sure it might look weird to do downward dog in your cubicle but I bet your back and neck would appreciate it after sitting in front of a computer all day.

It doesn’t have to be a full class. If you can’t commit to an hour long, instructor lead yoga class, do what you can. Start small. With all good habits it just takes time to make them your norm!

How do you incorporate yoga into your life?