Sometimes, your yoga practice means practicing at home rather than going to a studio. And that’s completely okay! Practicing yoga at home can be just as effective as practicing in a studio class. It might just take a little more effort to create a peaceful and effective home yoga space and routine, whether you’re a beginner or an intermediate practitioner.
It’s important to set an intention for your home practice. Usually, it’s easier to do this by beginning in quiet. Find a place in your home where you can be quiet, or at least mostly quiet. If possible, make sure others know not to disturb you while you’re practicing. Then you can set your intention and begin.
Along with quiet, start your home practice in stillness. By beginning in a comfortable position, either sitting or lying down, you can do a scan of your body and mind and decide what will be most beneficial for you that day, whether that’s big movement or more focused poses. If you are feeling like you’re dragging and need energy, try incorporating heart-opening poses and backbends. If you’re feeling like you need to ground into your body and surroundings, focus on using more standing poses. Being tired might call for a shorter, restorative practice, while high energy might call for a more robust, longer practice.
You should also choose poses that you love. While it can be good to throw in one or two poses that challenge you, using a majority of poses you actually enjoy will make it more likely that you’ll keep wanting to practice yoga at home. Particularly at the beginning of your flow, choose a handful of poses that make you feel fantastic, so you’ll actually want to unroll your mat consistently.
The above comes with a caveat. It’s important to choose poses you love, but it’s easy for the same poses to become routine and be repeated over and over again. That’s okay, but if you find that happening, try making those poses your go-to when you are busy or uninspired. But try mixing it up when you are able to and try new poses. Keeping your routine fresh will also help you come back to your mat on a regular basis.
While many studio classes are an hour or more, you don’t have to devote that much time to your home practice if you don’t have the bandwidth. If you do, that’s great. But even just fifteen minutes of yoga can improve your day and your health. Don’t let the perceived time commitment scare you away from a home yoga practice.
Studio classes also usually have very calming music or no music at all. Your practice can look however you want it to! If you want to listen to Sabrina Carpenter, a true crime podcast, or the news while you do yoga, go for it. It might not bring you the quiet you need to get a deeply meditative practice, but it’ll get you on the mat. And when you feel called to bring your awareness inward, you can practice in quiet. But it doesn’t have to look the same every time.
It can be nice to have a dedicated space for your practice, with plants, incense, and a meditation cushion waiting for you daily. And if you have the ability to have that kind of setup, more power to you. But it’s not necessarily a must for a home yoga practice. You just need a place to unroll your mat. Clear out a space on the floor for half an hour to practice, grab the props you might need, and get to it. Once you’re done, that space may become the living room floor again and get taken over by other things. But for that time, it’s your own personal studio.
If you take nothing else away from this post, please remember that you don’t need to do anything special to have a home yoga practice. You don’t need to have a fancy setup, or quiet music, or a long, specific yoga flow. Do what feels right for you in the moment, and if that’s different next time, then it’s different next time. What’s most important is that you just do it!
Do you have a home yoga practice? What’s your favorite way to practice at home?