Competitive, fast moving, and with very little time outside of work, that’s life for a lot of you. You wake up, rush to work and by the time you return home you are too exhausted to exercise.
However, you can stay fit and healthy despite your busy schedule. How? Make yoga a part of your everyday life. You don’t need to spend hours doing yoga, you can do simple yoga while at your office desk, while eating, and even while bathing!
Here are 9 ways you can include yoga in your busy life:
1. Wake Up 10 Mins Early
You may wonder, what difference can 10 mins bring in your life? It will help you stay energized and focused. Use that time to pack in a few yoga asanas. Improve your breathing by doing asanas like sukha pranayama, bhramari yoga, sheetali yoga, bhastrika, and kapalbhati.
Yoga asanas for improving flexibility are upavistha konasana, baddha konasana, uttanasana, sucirandhrasana, garudasana, and utthita trikonasana.
2. Yoga While You Shower
Showers are not just for singing, you can do yoga asanas like tadasana and uttanasana while you shower. Tadasana will help strengthen the ankles, knees, and thighs. Practicing this asana will help improve your posture. Uttanasana is helpful in activating the abdominal muscles, it will also keep the spine strong and flexible.
Caution: Be careful when doing yoga in the shower. You may have imbalances and may fall.
3. Improve Your Posture
The basic essence of yoga is body posture correction. The best part is that you don’t have to attend a yoga class to correct your posture. You can correct your posture while sitting and even while standing in a supermarket queue.
Yoga asana like tadasana and vrksasana are great for improving the body posture.
4. Conscious Breathing
Stressed by all the work at the office? Stop worrying and start breathing. Deep breathing can help you fight stress and relax your body.1 Breathing consciously is a part of yoga, take deep breaths whenever possible. It can relax your muscles and even help lower the blood pressure.
You can also practice yoga asanas like kapalbhati, sheetali yoga, and sukha pranayama to help improve breathing.
5. Yoga At Your Office Desk
You spend hours at your office desk. Sitting for long hours can lead to shoulder and back pain, poor blood circulation in legs and a strained neck.2
Practice yoga at your desk to relax your eyes, neck, arms, back, and legs. In order to relax your body, try stretching sideways but be mindful of others sitting next to you. You can also stretch your feet and ankle to improve the blood flow in the legs.
You can try wrist and finger stretches, chair pigeon pose, and seated crescent moon pose for greater health benefit.
6. Your Office Presentation Can Be A Yoga Too!
You don’t have to stretch and bend during the important presentations. All you need to do is play with colors. Yes, the colors! Make use of the color gold as it is related to the spirituality. The color gold can uplift your mood, it can also help you stay focused during the presentation.
7. Practice Mindful Eating
Too much of anything is harmful and the same applies to food. Mindful eating can benefit you in numerous ways. It can help you lose weight by keeping away from unhealthy food options.3 When eating food, avoid doing any other activity such as watching television or reading emails. Just focus on the food you eat and eat only fresh and healthy food.
8. Don’t Just Do Yoga But Live Yoga
Yoga is not about mats and yoga studios. Yoga is in your everyday life. Simple activities such as drying clothes on the clothesline is yoga too, you stretch when you put clothes on the clothesline.
The aim of yoga is to balance your body, mind, and soul. To achieve this you need to live yoga. You can do this by eating healthy, breathing consciously and by smiling more often. Smiling can lighten your mood as well as relax the facial muscles.
9. End Your Day With Family Time
Ending your day with the family is a good way to stay happy and improve bonding. Sit down with your family for few minutes of relaxation. You and your family can do yoga asanas like shavasana and viparita karani (leg up the wall pose) to relax after a long day. Doing this every day will improve your health and help you sleep better.
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