Everyday Yoga Poses

How to practice yoga when you have no time…..

Consistency is key with yoga, and one of the best ways to skill-up your yoga practice is to build in key poses into your daily routine.

Some days, we’re busier than others - and even with the best intentions, somewhere between the morning coffee, the nine o’clock meeting, the school run, and the mad dash for the train (or the mad boot-up of your laptop at 8:59, if you’re working from home), that forty-five minute slot we had planned for our morning Vinyasa Flow session gets completely lost.

So when you don’t have time for a full session, but you still want a little time and space to be present on your mat, why not have some go-to poses up your sleeve?

Here are some of our favourite poses, which strike the balance between building core strength, improving flexibility, and balancing the mind. As always, we prefer to start the day right with these poses as soon as we wake up in the mornings - but some prefer to switch this up and have an evening yoga session instead. 

Whichever way is best for you, by practising these simple poses at least once a day, you’ll soon be on the path to developing better balance in your Muscle, Movement and Mood.

Pose 1: Downward Dog

A staple, and one of the best poses to start the day with. Downward Dog is an inversion, meaning the head is below the heart in this position - which changes up the direction of blood flow. Increased blood flow to the head stimulates the mind, and kicks the brain into action.Downward Dog will also help you develop flexibility - try pedalling your feet to really work the stretch into your calf muscles.

Our top tip? Spread the fingers wide, and keep the whole palm of your hand pressed to the floor to send the hips up and away from you. 

Pose 2: Pigeon Pose

Pigeon pose is another of our everyday favourites - it’s a seriously effective hip opener and will do wonders for tight glutes. Start in Downward Dog, then raise one leg up and back, before sweeping it directly underneath the chest, with the knee bent beneath your rib cage. You may wish to stay upright at first, then slowly sink the chest towards the bent knee you have underneath your body. For an extra challenge, try gradually sinking all the way down so that your forehead rests on the floor. Stay here for at least two minutes, then repeat with the other leg in front.

This is a slow and steady pose - never rush into it, and make sure your limbs are sufficiently warm from the Downward Dog position first. As well as strengthening the elasticity in the muscles, you’ll also feel a really release of trapped energy and tension - a great endorphin booster.

Pose 3: Forward Fold

After coming back to Downward Dog following your Pigeon Pose on both sides, walk your hands back towards your feet. Once you’ve got your weight firmly back on two feet, remain hanging forward. Sway side to side a little, to stretch out both sides of your waist - you can either keep the hands hand loose, or gently fold the arms. After about one minute, slowly begin to roll the body upward - imagine you are stacking each vertebrae of your spine, one-by-one, until you reach a full standing position. Roll the shoulders back, and let the hands hang loosely at your sides, with your knees soft.

This is a great pose to remind you of your spine alignment - take notice of any points as you roll upward where you wobble slightly, as this can indicate a tendency to lean your weight more on one side than the other. Try to come up as evenly and slowly as you can - control is key for getting the full benefits of this pose.

Breathe through the pose - we often like to take a deep breath in, then breathe out while we roll upward. 

Pose 4: Warrior I

Once standing, step into a lunge, keeping your back leg straight and if you can, your back heel remaining flat on the ground. Take the arms up to reach towards the sky and hold, imagining you are stretching further and further upward. To keep the shoulders and neck in line, it can often help to visualise a piece of silk extended from the crown of your head - like a puppet string - pulling you gently up. Hold this position for a minute, then step the feet together and repeat the pose on the other side.

Warrior I is a great pose for stimulating the blood flow and building core strength. Keeping as still as possible is the challenge here. It’s also a great place to set your intentions of the day from - let your heart smile outward as you take stock of your goals for the day.

Pose 5:’Corpse’ Pose, or Savasana

Finally, come back down to lie on your back, with your palms facing upward and your knees relaxed. You could put a cushion, blanket or yoga block beneath your knees or beneath the small of the back for support here. 

You have stimulated the movement in the body, and begun to consider your intentions for the day. Savasana is that space in which you can consolidate these intentions - it’s the peace and the quiet before the business of the day begins. Allow yourself ten minutes in this pose - and if you often find you struggle to give time for being still, as many of us do in our busy lives, try to see this time as an an investment: to reflect, to listen to your thoughts and your emotions and be aware of your emotional state, to allow ideas and creativity to be renewed - which will only mean you are able to use your time in the day more efficiently. If you invest

this ten minutes now, you’ll save three, four, or five times the minutes later in the day through being more intent on your personal goals, more grateful for what you have already achieved.

We love to double-up Savasana pose with a ten minute guided meditation - try our guided Meditation For Building Trust, or have a look at the meditations available on apps like Calm or Headspace.

What next?

Try to dedicate fifteen minutes for practising these poses, each day. Our top tip? Try to do the poses in the same order each day - this will create a failsafe routine that you can fall back on when times get busy, that’s committed to your muscle memory. Building muscle memory helps the body to carry on the process of strengthening the muscles all on its own - keeping you fit for life. Repeating the poses in the same order will also help you spot and track changes to your strength and comfort each day, as you move through each pose.

And on those days when you do have the time to give yourself more space to practise, why not take a look at our timetable? We have a range of online and in-studio classes, which will help you build your repertoire of poses.

The Health Benefits of Yoga

Yoga is an investment: the more you put in, the more you get out.

For centuries, people have turned to yoga as a route to improving health and happiness - and it’s a practice that has certainly stood the test of time. But what exactly are the benefits of the ancient practice of yoga?

Psychologists and scientific researchers have conducted thousands of studies on the many health benefits of yoga. Here at Dragonfly, our yoga teachers love to combine their expert knowledge on the science behind yoga with their own unique practice style to help our yogis to develop mind, body and soul.

Read on to find out the results of the studies we rate highly, and to find out how yoga could be the next step you take to improving your wellbeing and quality of life.

The benefits can be organised into three main areas - we like to call these The Three ‘M’s: Muscle, Movement, and Mood...

Muscle

Core strength is at the heart of great yoga practice: we like to think of it as the starting point, from which all yoga poses and transitions extend. Take a look at our beginner’s guide to yoga poses, to start building up your core strength. Core strength is built by regular practice, rather than intense but very spread out workouts. Often, the best way to really kickstart good habits with core strength is to attend classes - which allow you to explore your core strength in a guided environment, on a regular basis. Pilates is also a great way to build core strength, as well as Hatha yoga classes which really focus on using strength to keep stillness in each pose.

...But it doesn’t stop at core strength! Yoga works on the interconnectivity of the muscles, visualised as energy flowing from one area of the body to another. A yoga sequence will  allow you to isolate and work on the strength in one area of your body, before transitioning this energy to another area - giving you a full body workout.

Building muscle strength not only keeps you fit, it can also alleviate chronic back pain or poor posture, as you build muscle in the body that improves the way you naturally carry yourself. For posture fixes, take a look at our guide to improving your posture.

Recovery is a key element of muscle health, and recent studies have shown that yoga practice such as Yin yoga helps reduce muscle inflammation, by breaking down the lactic acid in the muscles which is built up after exercise. We recommend doing a Yin class to help the muscles fully recover and improve flexibility, straight after a high intensity yoga practice like Vinyasa Flow or Hatha Flow - why not try this with us on Wednesday evenings?

Movement

Yoga practice is underpinned by the belief that the body’s energy must be balanced equally, and that we sometimes experience energy blocks: parts of the body where energy cannot flow freely through the body. To tackle these energy blocks, yoga works to keep energy moving through the body - or in other words, yoga helps to keep the blood circulating through all parts of the body and the breath even and consistent. 

The physical benefits that can be achieved through this balance of energy flow are better circulation, leading to a healthier heart, and open breathing, leading to healthier lungs. Flow classes, such as Ashtanga or Vinyasa, are best for cardiovascular conditioning, since these classes up the heart rate which over time, studies have shown improve your endurance, expand your intake of oxygen during exercise, and lower your resting heart rate. This is a great combat against high cholesterol and when practised regularly, can maintain a healthy heart. Those with high blood pressure have also found that yoga is proven to lower systolic blood pressure: in fact, the Savasana pose was associated with a 26-point drop in pressure, compared with simply lying on the sofa. 

It’s not only movement of blood and oxygen through the body which yoga improves, though - it also improves control, movement and flexibility of the joints and muscles. The strength which yoga builds in the muscles (as mentioned earlier), combined with the balance and spatial awareness developed by frequent practice does wonders to improve your range of movement and flexibility. This can prevent falls and accidents, particularly later on in life, when without regular exercise and balance practice we can often experience a loss in range of movement or the control over our bodies.

Mood

The physical benefits gained from yoga through the muscles and movement are mirrored in the positive impact on our mood. Yoga is based on the core principle of marrying the body with the mind, so it’s no surprise that studies have shown the benefits of yoga to extend beyond the physical, to our mental wellbeing.

The main hormone in the body that is responsible for feelings of stress is cortisol. Through exercising the whole body and investing in breathing and meditation practice, yoga is known to decrease levels of cortisol in the body - making our stress more manageable. Not only this, but even when we are experiencing high levels of cortisol due to inevitable tough times in our lives which are out of our control, yoga practitioners are significantly better prepared to deal with their stress - their good habits with meditation and exercise kicking in, allowing yogis to regain perspective on the situation much more quickly than those without meditation in their habits. 

On top of decreasing cortisol and stress, yoga can also increase ‘happy hormones’ in the body such as dopamine and endorphins. Flexibility is closely linked with decreasing stress, since stretching is known to release endorphins - giving you a happiness boost. Don’t believe us? Try including a morning stretch in child’s pose and monitor how it impacts your mood for the rest of the day.

Nothing has a greater impact on mood than good quality sleep. The benefits of making sure you get enough rest at the end of each day have been studied by psychologists for many years. Sleep is the body and mind’s vital time to recharge its resources, make repairs, and allow the brain to work through the information of the day - and without consistent, quality sleep, we can fall into patterns of depression, as well as negative impacts on our physical health.

There are many ways to improve your sleep - such as avoiding screen time (especially harmful blue light) less than one hour before you plan to sleep, turning down lights in the house in the evenings to start your body’s natural closing-down process as part of your circadian rhythm, and making sure you go to bed and wake up at similar times each day.  Restorative Yin Yoga encourages the body and mind to wind down before sleep, and also is a great way to practice breathing techniques, which allow you to develop the skill of relaxing your body and slowing your heart rate before bed. Having trouble getting to sleep or feeling constantly drained? Try going to our Yin yoga classes in the evenings, to improve sleep quality and boost your energy throughout the day.

Be it for muscle, movement or mind, there are so many benefits to taking time and space for ourselves during our busy working days to practise. It’s important to read up on the types of yoga out there, so you can select classes which will have the most positive impact. We recommend reading through the teacher bios - as these bios are insights from the experts into what they will most likely focus on in their classes. 

Definitely have a chat with your yoga teacher too, as they can use their expertise to offer bespoke advice on how yoga might specifically benefit your unique health needs. We love our individuality as human beings here at Dragonfly, so we like to make sure our advice is tailored to our yogis!

...Begin your journey to better health and wellbeing today, by taking a look at our online and in-studio classes on our timetable. We’re here to help - so if you’ve got questions about how yoga might be able to improve your personal health needs, whether for a specific area or for all-round health, then we’d love to hear from you and give you some guidance