9 Ways to Boost Your Morning Yoga Routine • Yoga Basics

We all woke up on the wrong side of the bed. If you get too little sleep and burn your tongue over morning coffee, it can quickly turn into a terrible day. A morning yoga practice provides the tools to start the day on the right side of the bed and carry that happy feeling within us as the day progresses. However, yoga includes a variety of exercises that go beyond poses and can improve your ability to set a positive tone for the day. We've rounded up nine exercises to help you feel more grounded, balanced, inspired, calmer, and happier for the rest of your day.

How to Expand and Improve Your Morning Yoga Routine

To get the most out of your morning routine, check out the following nine exercises. These will help you move from a stressful mode of work to a quieter, more peaceful, and happier place. Adding this to your morning yoga routine creates a solid foundation for the rest of your day, giving you the energy, focus, and excitement to be more productive, happier, and more mindful.

These simple techniques and morning yoga poses not only start your day with a smile, they also increase your overall happiness, vitality, and wellbeing. While most of these are easy to learn, you should consult a seasoned yoga instructor for more information.

1. Meditate

Meditation is the key to long-term happiness and inner peace. It can actually change your brain permanently. A meditation practice increases happiness by increasing positive emotions and reducing depression, anxiety, and stress. A study by the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology found that meditation on loving kindness increased positive emotions over time. I think meditation on loving kindness means wishing well to yourself and others, and then extending that wellbeing to all beings.

2. Visualization

The visualization helps you replace negative thoughts with positive ones. If you can start your day visualizing some future happy event, anticipation will give you an extra boost of happiness. So start your day in your happy place. First, close your eyes and introduce yourself in your favorite place or do something to look forward to. Imagine how it feels, smells and what it sounds like. Let yourself be transported to this safe space.

3. Gratitude

How you feel in the morning can affect your entire day. Start your day with gratitude, because grateful people are happy people. During your yoga practice, think or say what you are grateful for. Some days I just want to start with: “I am grateful for this body. I am grateful for this yoga practice. “When you return to your grateful thoughts in your practice, you will be grateful and happy throughout the day.

4. Kapalabhati

Kapalabhati or fire breath is perfect for the morning because it warms and energizes the body and brain. Kapalabhati is an invigorating breath that can help shake off negative emotions and clear out negative thoughts. It is characterized by rapid short exhalations and passive inhalations. At the beginning of your workout, add 1-3 short rounds to make it easier to wake up. Advanced yogis can add respiratory arrest and bandhas to further intensify this breathing exercise.

5. Add power poses

A morning spike in self-esteem and self-esteem increases your happiness as the day progresses. You are more likely to feel good in life when you are feeling good. Power poses are asanas that give energy and make you feel strong, confident, and ready to tackle the day. Get on your mat and practice the poses that will make you feel like a rock star. Try some standing yoga poses to get strength and energy. Add several of the warrior poses to increase your willpower and focus on overcoming all the obstacles in your day. Breast-opening backbends also improve your posture and encourage compassion and courage.

6. Accept the challenge

Knowing how to deal with challenges can increase your happiness by showing you that the worst-case scenario is often not as bad as you thought it would be. When faced with challenging poses on your mat, you will consider them not that bad and may even learn to feel calm in the midst of the challenge. Add advanced yoga poses that you don't like to your morning practice. Choose the pose that you least like, that makes you tense and maybe even stressed out. Practice, breathe and even smile through it and feel better able to deal with what the day throws at you.

7. Set clearly achievable goals

Mastering skills and achieving our goals gives us a long-term happiness boost. When we look back on an accomplishment, we feel happy, empowered, and strong. Create a ritual where you set intentions and goals on a regular basis. Use your asana, pranayama, and meditation practice to improve your skills and reap the long-term benefits. Pick a pose or technique that you learn and practice every day. You are even more than welcome to track your progress.

8. Smile

Smiling makes you feel good and allows you to relax from stress. Even if you don't feel happy, smiling can make you happier. So, do an asana pose and smile. It's probably best to start with a pose you like, or even one of your power poses, but eventually try the more challenging poses as well.

9. Eat mindfully

If you have breakfast, you will be in a better mood. But mindful eating increases your happiness even more. Appreciating your food before you delve into it increases anticipation, which also increases happiness and even makes your food taste better. So take your practice off the yoga mat with breakfast.

How to incorporate exercises into your morning routine

• Don't assume too much right away – start exploring and adding just an exercise or two.
• Practice each one individually to measure its impact and understand the technique.
• Pick the ones that resonate the most with you and try first.
• Be playful, creative, and exploratory to incorporate these into your yoga routine.
• Take time for integration and reflection to further refine your morning routine.

Morning yoga is one of the best ways to start the day and one of the easiest ways to achieve your best physical and mental performance. Daily yoga practice that includes one or more of the ideas above will have the most powerful effects on promoting inner peace, emotional balance, and happiness. The more time you spend on your yoga mat in the morning, the more benefits you will get from yoga. Leave a comment below to let us know what you've tried, how it felt, and what other yoga practices will help your morning yoga flow.