It is easy to drop yoga from your busy life unless you take steps to prevent it.
Alice is getting ready for work. The lunches for the kids are already made. She has checked her email to make sure that there are no more crises. Alice has already canceled her yoga practice because her husband is unable to take their oldest child to music class tonight.
Now it is time to get everyone out the door to school and then it is off to work.
Alice’s life is busy enough. With all of this going on how is Alice going to fit her yoga practice into her life as well as everything else?
There are three techniques that Alice can use to keep yoga a priority in her life.
- Early mornings
- Put it in your calendar
- Anywhere, Anytime
Each of these techniques will help her with her commitment to practice yoga on a regular basis. The first and most effective technique is to have an early morning practice.
1 – Early mornings
One of the most effective techniques Alice could adopt is to complete her yoga practice first thing in the morning.
If your mornings are already full, as most everybodys is, try getting up an hour earlier and do your yoga practice then.
An early morning yoga practice has many things going for it including:
- There is nothing else you need to do before you start your yoga practice other than get out of bed.
- There is no one around to distract you or make demands on you.
- Your mind is rested and your body is relaxed.
Many people have found that getting up and hour earlier in their day has been very effective for them.
If early mornings are not going to work for you then the next technique that you can try is using your calendar.
2 – Put it in your calendar
Alice could make an appointment with herself to go to yoga class.
Put the date and time in your calendar of your yoga class. When you make the appointment include enough time for the travel to and from yoga class as well.
This technique works for your doctor’s appointments and your car’s maintenance. You even manage to get your kids to all of their appointments because their events are in your calendar as well.
The maintenance of your mind & body, is just as important as your car maintenance, so put it in your calendar and leave it there. Make an appointment with yourself to keep your mind and body in top condition.
Putting your yoga class times in your calendar is a very effective technique, however there will be days when even this will fail. There is a third technique, on the spot yoga, that you can use to get in a yoga practice when all else fails.
3 – Anywhere, Anytime
Alice could try on the spot yoga.
This involves grabbing any opportunity that presents itself and to practice yoga for a minute or two. Once you start looking you will be surprised at how many times through out the day that you are waiting. You are waiting in line, you are waiting on the phone, you are waiting at home. Sure you may only be waiting for a few minutes, but that is enough time to do a yoga pose, or to focus your attention on your breath.
Standing in line you could do one of many standing yoga poses. Just think, you will be providing some entertainment for the people around you in line and maybe you will make some new friends.
While waiting on hold on the phone you could focus on your breath and practice deep calming breaths.
Once you start to look for it you will find all kinds of opportunities to slip a little bit of yoga into your life.
There is no rule that says that your yoga practice must be 90 minutes long and done in a particular place. Grab the moment and do yoga whenever you have some down time.
My Early Morning Yoga Practice
I first started doing yoga in the evenings and on weekends like everyone else. I marked the event in my calendar so I would not book something on top of it. I used technique #2 above. This technique worked well as long as I kept yoga as a high priority in my life.
I found that gradually over time I was letting other events in my life become a higher priority and I was canceling my practice to do something else. That is when I decided to move my practice to the mornings.
My mornings were already full, so I used the first technique and started getting up an hour earlier in the morning.
Now, my personal yoga practice starts at 6:30 in the morning. This time period works well for me for all of the reasons above. It was getting too easy to put off my yoga practice when it was in the evening because of one event or another. At 6:30 in the morning there is no other event that is likely to be scheduled at that time. There is no one else around to make demands on my time either.
It took a little time to adjust to getting up an hour earlier, but now that the habit is established, I find that I am getting up earlier, feeling refreshed and ready to go to my yoga practice.
Summary
Alice decided to move her yoga practice to the early mornings. Now she finds that her mornings are less stressful since she started getting up earlier to practice yoga before everyone else is up. She is able to get through the morning routine with a lot less stress.
Her early morning yoga practice is helping her to get her day off to an excellent start. And there is no music classes at 6 in the morning to get in the way of her yoga practice.
Next Step
Which of these techniques are you going to adopt to insure that your yoga practice is going to happen on a regular basis?
