In this time of pandemic, it is essential for people who are practicing yoga to develop a home yoga practice. This, for sure, will benefit not only the yoga practitioners who are doing yoga workouts at the comfort of their home but also those travelers and transient individuals.
Also, it will ensure safety since face-to-face yoga classes are still not allowed in some other jurisdictions. Even though permissible in most parts of the world, the same is not yet advisable. This is so because of the prevailing health protocols implemented by the respective governments and states.
This informational article will both help those beginners in yoga and those practitioners who are indulged for quite some time already. Likewise, this will discuss the importance of home yoga practice and how will it benefit yoga practitioners.
What is a Home Yoga Practice, and Why Does it Matter?
Practicing yoga at your comfort zone is a way to relax and unwind. This is done by doing yoga positions even if you are just doing them at your own house.
Doing yoga at home proves that it can be done anywhere, where one wishes to do these yoga exercises. It also underscores that yoga can be performed as safely as possible, taking into consideration the existing minimum health protocols.
It is important for people to do yoga at their convenience, preferably in their own house. In doing so, they can meditate properly and at the same time relax at their expediency.
How to develop a Home Yoga Practice?
To create a place at your dwelling suitable for practicing yoga, here are some ways to start and improve it, namely:
Make room for yoga
Working out yoga at home should imitate its executions performed in studios and yoga group classes. Of course, it is better when done with the guidance of helpful video tutorials or online lessons.
The same goes with the space needed to execute the yoga poses. It is essential that there be enough area for stretching.
This is tacitly required so that yoga postures can be initiated without bumping into your home furniture such as chairs, shelves, and tables, as well as electronic appliances.
As much as possible, the location dedicated for yoga should be calm, peaceful, and tranquil. Some yoga enthusiasts prefer to have a room with a clear wall.
However, others like to put ornaments in the perimeter. They like to place candles or incenses that really mimic a place for yoga sessions.
Some people also decorate their yoga space with a motivating photograph or an inspiring quote that may psychologically pushed them to the limits.
Moreover, it would also be very helpful to declutter the work floor.
It may, somehow, help decongest and free the mind with untoward thoughts when doing yoga postures in a clutter-free area.
Unless indulging in hatha yoga, the temperature of the room should also be in its normal degree, and not too hot nor too cold.
Prepare the necessary things for yoga
In your yoga session, whether it is in a class or at home, you do not need too much equipment.
With less equipment in yoga, it makes it affordable and available to everyone.
Nevertheless, it would be helpful to use a mat and some props, such as yoga blocks (for beginners), so that it would be somehow seamless to do yoga poses.
Brief look at what was before
During the early and mid-20th Century, yoga teachers and their students did yoga postures on cotton mats and towels.
By the 1980’s, rubbers mats, also known as sticky mats, were more commonly used in yoga.
In the 21st Century, the yoga mat and other yoga accessories business have become a booming industry, with many types of mats and huge array of accessories to choose from certainly to suit your requirement.
Benefits of yoga practice accessories
Yoga mats and accessories can make yoga practitioners spend a little more pennies than what is expected. However, these can be substituted with common items found in your house.
The benefits of accessories, as can be gleaned from experience, far more outweighs the few dimes that has to be spent, let alone the DIY (Do It Yourself) props that we can improvise.
All you have to do is to be creative and exercise your resourcefulness for you to complete your home yoga routine.
Prepare your body for yoga
Always remember to wear light and comfortable clothes. It would be of great help if you put stretchable clothing like sportswear. As such, it would be easy for you to execute and perform yoga postures.
A nice warm bath before yoga would also be good for the body. It aids flexibility and blood circulation. Similarly, it is also good to urinate and have a bowel movement before starting a yoga workout. It helps not to stall your momentum.
Make time for yoga
In home yoga practice, you should commit a time to devote yourself in properly executing the asanas or yoga postures. A person can do yoga in the morning, in the afternoon, or even in the evening.
Some people even do it after lunch. Always consider the best time for you. Here, the key is to make time for yoga in your life.
If you do not devote time for it, you will not maintain it and if you cannot maintain, it will not form part of your habit. Hence, it will become a waste of time.
Actual yoga practice
In actual yoga practice at home, stretching should also be an essential component to be done prior to actual exercise. This is to avoid muscle cramps.
Five to ten minutes of warm-up before the actual yoga should be made. More importantly, remember not to do yoga when you have a fever or deep wounds. Consult your instructor if you have an illness.
In executing the asanas or yoga postures, beginners in yoga should be able to do an asana within 3 to 5 breaths. This can be increased to 5 to 10 breaths after three months of performing regularly these different yoga postures.
Remember that you should always practice proper breathing. You should inhale and exhale through your nostrils while focusing in breathing slowly and smoothly.
While performing asanas, always consider your body’s limitations. As much as possible, try to avoid any feeling of pain, especially if it is very uncomfortable and you cannot continue.
You should always keep in mind that the aim of practicing yoga at home is the relaxation of mind and body, not discomfort or body ache.
If you feel hurt while executing the movements, just change position gently and avoid any sudden actions out of the pose.
In case you feel any discomfort, always adjust from the strenuous poses to simpler ones or you may use props that will assist you in yoga.
You can use yoga blocks, if applicable.
General overview of yoga session
After warm-up, the yoga session should start with easy movements. As you continue and finish with the asanas that are easy to execute, the difficult postures should follow the easy ones. In the end, there should be a period of cool down.
The general overview of a typical yoga session is like a bell-shaped curve. The start of the curve is a period of centering.
As you continue to progress up the curve, you will do the warm-ups, which will then lead to the opening poses.
These opening postures help build the heat in the body and flexibility and strength. The top of the bell-shaped curve are those challenging positions.
From the top, the curve now starts to move down. The downward trend embodies the cool down postures followed by the strenuous postures.
In the end, a period of relaxation is observed. This period is commonly known as Shavasana. The Shavasana is also known as the corpse pose. The yoga practitioner lies down on a floor like a corpse.
This is observed to eliminate any sense of tiredness and to promote the mind’s calmness.
Opening Postures
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Challenging Postures
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Cool Down Postures
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Shavasana
Tips and Reminders for developing a Home Yoga Practice
In home yoga practice, always remember to do meditation and pranayama. Usually, during face-to-face yoga classes, instructors only allot a few minutes of meditation during a session.
Through home yoga practice, this is an opportunity for you to make more time for meditation and pranayama strategies. More time for breathing incorporated with the asana will make your body more relaxed.
It cannot be gainsaid that you should enjoy engaging in yoga workouts at the comfort of your home. You can do the exercises while the music is playing. A relaxing atmosphere may result therefrom.
You can also practice yoga with friends; yet, social distancing measures should be observed.
You can do your yoga through an online lessons. This will make you feel more concentrated, motivated, and encouraged, thereby, looking forward to more yoga sessions while at home.
Another rule of the thumb is better to practice yoga regularly for short durations than to practice yoga once a week for long periods.
Consistency is the key to achieve a quality practice session at your house.
Yoga schedules spread out in a week will produce more favorable results to your body than to do all yoga postures all in one within a day.
Closing
In the words of Anup Sapkota, “the first step is always the hardest.” Many people fail to do the firsts and the basics. Same is true for the initial preparation for home yoga practice.
It may seem so easy but many people do not perform the necessary steps to prepare a place for yoga at home. Many people do not inceptively adjust themselves for yoga. Many do not devote time doing yoga at home.
That is why they may find difficult to achieve the quality of yoga performance that they desire, even though doing the same at home.
However, once you do the basics for yoga and commit yourself to it, even through a house session, you will enjoy each and every routine thereof, until your home yoga practice becomes a habit.
During these times of a global pandemic, it is best to harness the benefits of yoga sessions at home. You will see that you can concentrate fully in meditating and relaxation.
In these times where people are often stricken with anxieties, depression, and mental anguish and fatigue, it is best to practice yoga to relieve yourself with all the emotional and mental stress generated by this pandemic or by all sorts of life’s problems.
