On "Doing Yoga"

One of the most frequent things I hear from patients is that they just don’t have time for exercise, or yoga, or their home exercise program. Particularly when it comes to yoga, I think there is a perception that to Do Yoga means to carve out 75 minutes to go to a studio in your Lululemon pants and feel amazing afterward. I don’t know about you, but that’s just not the reality of my life most days. I was stuck in this perception for a long time, too. Even when I started my own home practice, I still felt like I didn’t Do Yoga if I didn’t spend at least an hour and go from “start in a comfortable position” and “end in savasana.”

You know what though? I’m over that. Yoga is yoga is yoga. Yoga is 5 minutes of meditation on the bus or on a meditation cushion. Yoga is standing on my back deck moving through a few postures (asana) before bed, or when I wake up in the morning. Sometimes I get to a class, but now that I’m teaching it’s more common that I’m in front of a class. I make space for it when I can. And you can too.

I try to start my mornings consistently: wake up early, meditate for a few minutes, then move through this seated asana. It moves my spine through all the planes of motion: flexion/extension, sidebending, and rotation. It feels SO good. And only takes a minute.

I posted a video on Instagram and IGTV of my morning routine. Click on the link to follow along—no matter what you’re wearing and where you are. Take a minute to move with me!

Thanks for moving with me today. Thanks for Doing Yoga. Namaste.

What do you find to be the biggest barriers to doing yoga or whatever your movement practice is? How do you make time for it? Share below!