Early Morning Bliss

Let us just start this entry by emphasizing that yoga is incredible for your mind, body, and spirit when practiced at any time of day. However, after having experienced the practice in various ways and various times through the eyes of our students and ourselves, it felt important to highlight some of the reasons you may want to add a morning practice (or two) to your weekly practice schedule. 

We can all agree that our yoga practice is beneficial to our mental health. There’s something about this balanced practice that allows us to find mental clarity by observing and focusing on the bodies activity. When we make our practice a priority first thing in the morning we delete the angst that may come from anticipating our mid day or evening practice. Often times we are anxious to get to the mat or go back and forth on whether we are going to make it to the mat at all. This type of anxiety is not conducive to our mental health or yoga practice. Prioritizing our practice first thing in the morning allows us to put our mental health first so that we may find clarity, mental focus, one on one time with ourselves, and an avenue to release stress from the day before. Your yoga practice can prepare your mind for the day ahead.  

In addition to the mental health benefits, your physical body also thrives on a morning practice. Finding a connection with the quality of ones breath in the morning helps to oxygenate the blood. Because of this oxygen boost the body becomes energized to create movement and aid in boosting the circulatory system. The movement allows the body to create motion that aids in relieving stiffness and soreness in the muscles while strengthening and adding length to them. When we are asleep our muscles are resting so an early morning practice compliments the natural occurrences of the bodies processes.  

Now, cultivating spiritual development can be done in many different ways and has many different meaning to everyone. So we want to tread lightly when speaking on spirituality if that has a place in your yoga practice. Any type of yoga practice does require a level of discipline. When we make a morning asana (posture) practice a part of our day, it requires the discipline of rising early and creating time and space for the practice. This discipline alone is challenging and rewarding and can also be paired with other rituals that nourish the spirit during practice such as including crystals, incense, meditation/prayer, chanting etc. It is the discipline in these rituals that aid in spiritual development.  

The benefits of a yoga practice can be felt by any practitioner at any time of day in any style that yogi chooses to practice. We are not here to preach that the practice should be done in any specific way but to show you yogis, and challenge you to see how incredible the quality of your day can be by simply creating 30-60 mins of time to show up for your mind, body, and spirit in this new year.