ROUTINE, ROUTINE, ROUTINE
Starting your day with a morning movement routine is the best way to get the day started physically and mentally. It gets rid of stagnation and brings mobility and stability back after a prolonged static period of sleep. Starting the day with your practice ensures that it is consistently part of your routine and doesn’t get lost on a busy day. Gentle movement realigns the spine and helps you to stand, walk and sit more comfortably throughout the day with awareness of your posture. This more upright posture has a very positive effect on your mood and creates emotional openness for the day. Embedding a self care routine into your day cultivates a sense of calm, makes you feel more cared for and listened to – and in return makes you more caring and available to listen to others too. You are also more inclined to make healthy choices throughout your day when you have started with some self care.
Before each morning practice take a few moments to work out how your practice can support you today. Ask yourself what do you need physically? What do you need mentally? What are your energy levels? What is your mood today? What are your limitations? What is the rest of your day like? Where do you need mobility? Where do you need stability? You may not easily have the answer to each question but it will help remind you if you have an injury you are minding, if you need to go easy because you have a full day ahead or if you are dealing with something else in life that might require you to be extra kind to yourself.
THE BENEFITS OF A MORNING PRACTICE
Morning yoga stimulates the gut, promotes good digestion for the day, boosts the metabolism, builds a strong immune system, balances hormones, tones your muscles, improves posture and spine health, gives you energy, improves circulation, supports good heart health, builds healthy lungs and most importantly is proven to make you happier! Breath awareness in yoga triggers the ‘rest, restore and digest’ nervous system through the vagus nerve which runs from the brain stem down the spine. When this conscious breath is practiced as part of your daily routine it rewires your brain to naturally reach for this calmer reaction rather than a ‘flight or flight’ response to situations. In this calmer state of mind you are focused and able to make informed decisions.
WARMING UP
Before you start it is good to gently warm up all the joints and muscles – like you are politely asking them permission to move. Warmed up muscles will be more obliging and supple. Your muscles are like Blutac – if you spend a bit of time gently lengthening and contracting the fibres of the muscles they become more stretchy and smooth. If you pull Blutac without warming it up first it will rip in two!
In the sequence there are two different ways you will warm up the muscles. The first, which you will be more familiar with, is through a series of gentle mobilising movements at the very start of the practice. The second way is with isometric contraction, or by actively pressing against a surface until you feel a warm sensation in the muscles. In the following poses after the initial warm up you will find three isometric poses – Tadasana/Mountain, Plankasana/Plank & Utkatasana/Chair. These poses will strengthen and warm up your muscles by using a pressing action into the ground. These three foundational poses are very strong poses when they are approached by actively pressing into the ground, hugging the muscles to your midline and drawing your navel towards your spine.
EXPLORING A GENTLE MORNING FLOW IN YOUR PRACTICE
There are two main aims, from a physical point of view, you want to achieve in your morning practice – mobility and stability (flexibility & strength). This sequence will gently mobilise all the joints and surrounding muscles first before progressing towards actively stabilising them.
You will also tap into the calming effect of yoga and embed it into our mindframe for the day ahead. You will do this by bringing your attention to the breath before you start which will give you an anchor to come back to when you get distracted with your ‘to do’ lists throughout your practice (which is completely natural and part of the practice!). Sit in a comfortable seated position with the hips raised on a brick or a cushion. Place one hand on your heart and one hand on your belly. Start by just noticing the breath before you change it in any way. Is it short, is it long, is it more in the chest or can you feel it in the belly too – notice without judgement. Close your eyes and visualise a box. You will use this box to gently guide a full breath using the count of four for each inhale, pause and exhale, pause. Starting at the left corner of your box, inhale for the count of four and travel across the top of the box, pause for the count of four and travel down the right side of the box, inhale across the bottom of the box, pause and travel up the left side of the box back to the start. Continue to draw the box with your breath for ten to twenty rounds or set a timer for 5 to 10 minutes. The more in tune you become with your breath, and learn how to tap into this simple technique, the more it will help you in your day to day life off the mat. Now you are ready to start the movement part of your practice.
ALIGNMENT CUES
Moving slow and keeping it simple builds strength and stability in the joints and the surrounding muscles. In some of the mini flows in the sequence there are two poses linked together with a ‘x3’. You will move in and out of these two poses using the ‘+’ and ‘-’ breath cues and then settle into your version of the second pose. This fluid movement will help the muscles to hold the pose more comfortably and help you find which muscles are stretching and which you are strengthening in the pose.
Have a read of the tips below and either print out the sequence or save it onto your device:
In the first four warm up poses on row one sit up on a brick or a cushion to align and lengthen through the spine first.
After cat/cow, bring your knees together first for balance then starting on the right side lift your leg to hip height and bend your knee. Circle your knee for your hip circles, straighten and bend your knee for your knee kicks and keep the knee bent to do the ankle circles.
Before each mini flow, which are indicated between the arrowed lines, run through ‘mini flow a’ and ‘mini flow b’. Use downward dog to link your flows.
Incorporate at least 2 minutes for Savasana at the end of your practice to assimilate the practice and get yourself mentally ready for the day ahead.
To save the images for personal use click and hold down the image until the ‘save image’ option appears; on Mac hold down ‘control’ and click the image to get the option box; on PC right click on the image to get the option box. Scroll down in the ‘option box’ and click ‘save image’.
Ruth Delahunty Yogaru