Yoga is one of the best exercises for the health of your entire body. The busiest yoga classes tend to be later in the day when people are getting out of work or school. However, moving your yoga routine to the morning can actually have even more of a beneficial impact. Traditional yoga texts state that the time between 4:00 am and 6:00 am is the most conducive to yoga and meditation, so why not try moving your yoga practice to this time?
Too many of us reach for our smartphones or tablets first thing in the morning. By doing this, we allow outside factors, mainly emails, and text messages, to impact our energy and how we feel in the morning. After having a wonderful night’s sleep, seeing an angry email from your boss is not the way to get your day started on the right foot. Those emails and messages can wait!
Check-in with yourself first so you can set the pace and energy of your day. It is shocking how little time we get to ourselves once we leave the house in the mornings. Between riding a bus or train, interacting with co-workers and our bosses, and being with our family, there is very little time for ourselves. Taking these few minutes to do yoga in the morning is also a great time to grab a few moments of peace and quiet.
The sun salutation is a traditional yoga method of warming up every part of your body. This is a perfect first exercise of the day. Go to a park, your backyard, or even an open window, and let the sunshine on your face while you greet the day ahead of you. We spend a lot of our days in offices, schools, and other indoor jobs, so take the time to absorb some of the vitamin D the sun can provide.
Stretching in this way also helps to remove the connective tissues and bodily fluids that can naturally build up between the muscles overnight. Not doing so can cause the tissues and fluids to continue to build up and cause stiffness, aches, and pains.
Many people have reported that waking up a half-hour earlier than normal to do yoga at the beginning of the day actually left them feeling more rested than when they slept that extra half hour. Some also state that the natural energy that gets boosted in their body is enough to cut out their usual cup of coffee in the morning.
By incorporating some meditation at the end of your yoga time, you are also waking up your brain. Allowing it this time to wake up and to function better is valuable. The most mistakes made at work are in the first and last half hours of the day. With a brain that is awake and focused, you can avoid those early-morning mistakes.
The benefits that we gain from practicing yoga in the morning are more long-lasting than if it was performed in the afternoon or in the evening. For some of yoga’s other positive effects, like boosting your metabolism, this can lead to additional weight loss without extra work.
