The benefits of a morning practice

ONE STEP AHEAD
There’s a reason why the birds sing in the morning - they know that it’s the best part of the day! When you exercise in the morning, you take back a part of your day from all the phone calls, messages and emails. It’s a peaceful and sacred time, which these days is rare!

If you’re thinking ‘I’m not a morning person’, don’t worry, it gets easier the more you do it, and very soon it’ll be second nature to you! Early morning starts also encourage you to get to bed on time and, as a extra bonus, get a better night's sleep. When you have a morning routine it’s easier to stick to it, with the added benefit of leaving your evenings free. With the best will in the world, a busy day, or other evening commitments, can often stop you from getting onto your mat.

GET MOVING
Life is more static than ever before. In the past people were used to daily manual labour and physical activity. These days we have cleverly designed electrical devices to do all the work for us, and we’ve replaced this ‘free time’ with sitting at our desks. To every action there is a reaction, and physical labour has been replaced by overworking our poor brains in a very static environment. Businesses are starting to see the detrimental effect this has on the health of their staff, and are beginning to encourage more activity and mindfulness. In return, they reap the benefits of staff who feel cared for, more alert and productive throughout the day. The physical and mental benefits to your health are well-documented and a hot topic in the media.

THE BENEFITS OF YOGA
Yoga has an abundant range of benefits at any time of day – from an early morning stretch to a lunchtime de-stress or an evening wind-down. The time of day that works best for me is early morning, before I start my day. It resets my system and prepares me for whatever is in store. Starting your day with movement gets you ready for the day and, for those with desk jobs, helps you sit with ease for the rest of your day. Yoga breath awareness helps you use the breath throughout the day to cultivate calm and combat moments of tension in the workplace, with your children, or whatever your daily challenges are, reminding you to pause before you react to situations.

Because of the variety of movements yoga offers, it stretches and strengthens your whole body and helps alleviate morning stiffness. It lubricates and stretches all the connective fascial tissue, which supports the entire musculoskeletal system. It also helps to build a healthy spine - a spine that has been well oiled first thing in the morning is less likely to pinch or tweak during the day. All the supporting muscles have been switched on, and are ready to support the spine for the day. Yoga also improves balance and coordination, building spatial awareness which helps prevent injury.

We are all beginning to understand the importance of good digestion to all-round health. A morning practice wakes up the digestive system. Twisting, stimulating and massaging all our internal organs, it alleviates bloating and helps with a good morning elimination! It also raises the metabolism and keeps it elevated for hours afterwards.

Putting aside some time for yourself is the kindest and most nourishing gift you can give to yourself. This kindness encourages you to make healthy choices for the rest of the day by starting as you mean to go on. Set an intention or a focus and revisit it throughout your day. It’ll bring you back to your mat, your ‘happy space’, and give you renewed strength for the day.

The illustration below shows the huge variety of the benefits yoga offers. If we could start our day with even one or two of the benefits wouldn’t it be worth that little push to roll yourself out of bed and onto your mat to the tune of the early birds?

Ruth Delahunty Yogaru

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Practise with distractions

THE PRACTICE OF PATIENCE
Summertime can offer some challenges to your yoga practice. Trying to find a quiet space to roll out your mat on summer holidays without too many onlookers; the draw of the sunshine in the longer evenings or, like myself, having a gang of little ones on school summer holidays that seem to rise with the birds!

In an ideal world we’d all have our own little yoga studio where we could immerse ourselves in daily practice, with a ‘do not disturb’ sign on the door. A very tempting thought! I’ve often looked at my modest garden and wondered if I could fit in a trendy German Huf Haus. But unfortunately most of us have to find a quiet space in a busy house with a lot of traffic from early morning.

After the initial period of panic and uncertainty, I realised the practice of yoga for my summer was going to mean the practice of letting go of expectations and accepting the distractions when you do manage to get on the mat. My summer routine always starts with a walk or run at around 6:30am, to clear the head of chatter and list-making before finding my way onto my mat, which I roll out before heading out so I can slip back into the house and onto it with as little noise as possible. Inevitably the household is in full swing, with rumbling tummies and list of requests, before I’ve managed to find my way into Savasana. Depending on the moods and hunger levels, I can sometimes finish my sequence with three little onlookers, who even join in for a quick Savasana at the end. They’re beginning to recognise that when they give me a few minutes to find my balance, I’m more chilled out and it’s a win, win situation!

ME TIME
While it is recommended to practise in a quiet, clean and uncluttered sacred space, sometimes this just isn’t possible. So think of your summer yoga as the ultimate challenge of being creative with where you practise, cultivating inner focus and lots of patience! Whether it’s for 5 minutes or an hour, such are the benefits of yoga that it’s worth practising with acceptance of all the distractions that life throws at you.

Ruth Delahunty Yogaru

Yoga like a tortoise

UNEXPECTED SLOW DOWNS
Life throws us little injuries every now and again to test our patience! When the initial annoyance of an injury subsides there is huge scope for learning. An injury teaches you to examine your approach to your yoga practice, your day to day exercise routine and your approach to life in general.

I’m currently working on rehabilitating an instability in my piriformis (deep hip muscle). I’ve learnt from experience that the sooner I tackle the problem, with self awareness or a trip to the physio, the faster I recover. I lead an active life and am inclined to overstretch myself, both mentally and physically. My yoga practice teaches me to listen to that inner voice telling me to slow down, pull back and acknowledge the warning signs.

NO SHOULDS
My practice changed hugely during and after teacher training. Where I might have expected it to get more intense and physical, I found I was learning to pull back from over pushing and to drop any perceived targets for how far I should stretch or what asana I should be able to do. I learnt that there are no ‘shoulds’ and that each practice is totally different.

My new challenge is to slow my practice down to the pace of a tortoise, making the transitions just as important as the asana itself. By moving in this way you can feel the actions of the muscles more intensely, making it easier to find where your edge is and, in the case of injury, listening to what the body needs and knowing when to stop or pull back. From a physical point of view, moving slowly is far more challenging. For example, moving with control by stepping your foot forward from Adho Mukha Svanasana/Downward Facing Dog in preparation for Virabhadrasana II/Warrior II is a stronger transition than swinging your foot forward and hoping it reaches the inside of your hand! In your next practice, try stepping forward as slowly as you possibly can. Notice how different it feels and observe the intense action in the abs, quads and glutes. See which version challenges you most, whilst at the same time feels more controlled and secure. It can be very helpful to set your phone up to video one of your transitions and see if there are any areas you need to be mindful of: a knee buckling out to the side; a shoulder dropping; or one hip dipping lower than the other.

Injuries can often be caused by habitual misalignments in transitions. Or, in fact, in our everyday lives: how you stand; how you sit cross-legged; how you sit on the couch (weakened piriformis, I speak from experience!). From a yoga point of view a transition misalignment, like a dropped shoulder in Chaturanga/Four Limb Staff can gradually cause an injury which, in my experience, is harder to shift than an overstretched muscle. By slowing down, we give ourselves a chance to observe and keep in touch with correct alignment and avoid repetition injuries.

Make your next practice all about transitions. Flow fluidly with grace and awareness, move as softly and lightly as possible. Feel your whole body thanking you for listening!

Ruth Delahunty Yogaru