Yoga Every Day: 9 Tips for Creating a Successful Home Yoga Practice

There are many good reasons to develop a home yoga practice. Yoga practiced infrequently is unlikely to yield long-term benefits, and with a strong home practice, it’s much easier to get your regular dose of yoga in – no commute time or having to make your way through rush hour traffic! As an added benefit, current research shows that regular yoga and meditation practice helps slow aging and increases overall well-being.

Here are a few tips to get you started on a regular home yoga practice:

9 Helpful Guidelines for a Successful Home Yoga Practice

1. Short and simple beats, long and complex every time. Why wait until you have a spare hour? Three 20-minute practices each week will yield significantly better results than a single 60-minute one.
2. Yoga is more than asana. Only have five minutes? Try a simple breathing or meditation session. The mental and emotional benefits of 10 minutes of deep breathing can be profound.
3. Make your practice place special. Most people don’t have a yoga room in their homes, but you can turn any room into a sacred practice space. Dim the lights, light a few candles, and ring a pair of Tibetan chimes. Create a ritual that signals the transition from daily life to practice.
4. Celebrate success. Give yourself a mental high-five each time you practice, whether it’s for 60 seconds or 60 minutes. If you chastise yourself for not practicing, you will never practice. Instead, celebrate each and every time your feet land on your mat.
5. Integrate or distract kids and pets. Pets love interrupting yoga practice, so give them something else to do instead. Feed Fluffy some tuna; give Fido a chew toy; pop a Looney Tunes DVD in the player for the kids. And if you can’t distract them, have them join you. Yoga with the kids might become your favorite part of the day.
6. The best time to practice is when you’ll actually do it. Be honest with yourself. If you’re more likely to win Lotto than get up 15 minutes early, don’t plan to practice at 5:00 am. Morning, lunchtime, evening, before bed—any time is yoga time.
7. When you get discouraged, keep going! There will be days when you don’t want to practice or days when you don’t have time to practice. Practice anyway. Remind yourself what you love about yoga. If that doesn’t work, take the advice of dog trainers everywhere and treat yourself to practicing. I understand chocolate is particularly effective.
8. Schedule practice time on your calendar—in ink! You’ll never unroll your mat if you practice whenever you can squeeze it in. Choose a consistent time, write it down, and set up a reminder system. Make your practice a priority.
9. Above all else, enjoy yourself! Yoga is truly a gift. Treasure it!

Enjoy this short yoga asana practice with Cyndi Lee.

Reprinted with permission from Whole Life Yoga.

Tracy Weber, E-RYT 500, C-IAYT, owns Whole Life Yoga in Seattle and is the creator and director of Whole Life Yoga’s teacher training program. A practicing yoga therapist, she also is the author of the Downward Dog Mystery series, which won the Maxwell Award for fiction. She loves sharing her passion for yoga and animals in any way possible.

Tracy and her husband, Marc, live in Seattle with their crazy new German shepherd, Ana. When she’s not writing, Tracy spends her time teaching yoga, trying to corral Ana, and sipping Blackthorn cider at her favorite ale house. 

For more information on Tracy and the Downward Dog Mysteries, visit her website: http://TracyWeberAuthor.com/.