I often hear from yoga practitioners that they’d love to have a morning yoga routine but lack the time to do this. If this is something that’s true for you why not try starting a 5 minute morning yoga routine?
In this blog we’ll be exploring how you can do a 5 minute energizing yoga sequence of standing poses in the morning to wake up your body and mind.
Want to jump right into the practice? Follow Irene’s guided 5 minute standing yoga poses sequence on YouTube.
How to Start a 5 Minute Yoga Practice in the Morning
No matter how busy you are, if you’re interested in starting a morning yoga routine it should be possible to find five extra minutes. Whether that means setting your alarm 5 minutes earlier, or finding another way to create 5 extra minutes in your day.
5 minute guided yoga practices can be useful for the days you're feeling busy and without time to do a full practice. Or for those days that you’re low on energy, but still want to bring some movement and awareness to your body, breath, and mind.
I've personally found that both my yoga practice and overall health and wellbeing improved when I started doing shorter practices on days where I had less time or energy. I also noticed that allowing myself to do shorter practices made it easier to be consistent with a daily yoga practice.
What to Practice: 5 Minutes of Standing Yoga in the Morning
When thinking about what yoga poses and sequences to practice, its useful to think about what you want to get out of your practice and how you want it to make you feel.
Generally first thing in the morning our bodies feel stiff after spending many hours lying still in bed. Our minds can also still feel sleepy and so we’re often looking to find ways to wake up and feel energized.
With this in mind doing a series of yoga poses standing up can be a great way to move and wake up our bodies. Setting us up for whatever we want to accomplish in our day.
A short 5 minute yoga flow of standing poses will work on strengthening and opening our bodies. Irene’s 5 minute yoga sequence on YouTube includes some of the following poses. Of course feel free to play and experiment with different standing poses to best suit your body and individual needs.
Three Standing Poses for a Quick 5 Minute Yoga Practice
(1) Downward Facing Dog Pose | Adho Mukha Svanasana
The Downward Facing Dog Position, Adho Mukha Svanasana is one of my favorite standing poses to warm up and stretch the body. And is a great posture to start a short practice with.
Remember to ease in gently into the pose, especially if you’re practicing first thing in the morning when your body is stiff and cold. You can do this by gently bending your knees and allowing your heels to lift. That way you’ll ease the stretch in your hamstrings as you slowly warm up your body.
You could stay in the pose from around five to twenty breaths. Bringing most of your attention to the quality and steadiness of your breath.
(2) High Lunge Pose | Anjaneyasana
The High Lunge Pose, Anjaneyasana works on strengthening your quadriceps and hip flexors, while also working on the mobility of your hips. Bring focus to reaching your arms high, lengthening your spine, and firming your belly to engage your entire body.
See if at the same time you can soften your face and keep your gaze focused on one point. This will help calm your mind as you still keep working physically in the pose.
(3) Triangle Pose | Utthita Trikonasana
The Triangle Pose, Utthita Trikonasana is a great way to open and energize your entire body. You can work on lengthening and engaging your legs, torso, and arms. Really allowing yourself to ground through your feet and lift up through your top arm.
Once you’re comfortable in the posture allow your focus to turn towards your breathing. Letting each inhale and exhale be slow, wide, and deep.
Feeling Low on Energy?
Sometimes we feel tired and it can be hard to know if doing a yoga practice is the right thing. If you are feeling run down and exhausted it’s often the best thing to just take that extra rest and let your body recover.
But if you’re not really sure if you’re actually low on energy or just feeling a bit sluggish and in need of moving. A short 5 minute yoga practice can be a great way to determine if the best thing for you is to lie on the sofa and relax, or if you might feel better after moving your body and focusing on your breath.
If you're feeling low on energy and feel up to it, you can try doing a couple of yoga postures and see how you feel afterwards. If you're still tired then probably the best thing is to take rest. But if you start to feel more energized you could choose to do either a mini yoga practice, breathing or mindfulness practice.
Happy practicing or resting!
X Irene
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