SWEETIESAL

How To Stay Safe When Practicing Yoga At Home

One of the reasons why yoga is so popular is that anyone can do it almost anywhere with minimal expenditure. It’s not easy, as such – some of the positions take many years of practice – but it is accessible.

During the lockdown period we have all had to live through, even those who might usually have attended a professional studio for their yoga may well have started to do it at home, either by themselves or through an online class. 

If practicing yoga at home is something that appeals to you to relieve stress or increase your strength and flexibility, it’s important to do it safely. Although it’s rare, accidents can happen, and preventing them as much as possible is critical. Read on to find out what to do. 

Use Videos Not Images 

When you are just starting out on your yoga journey, you won’t have had the experience you might need to do some of the more complicated poses and make some of the moves you need to be very flexible to achieve. If you try them, you might injure yourself. This is why it’s so important to look at videos and not images. 

In a video, you can follow someone’s instructions exactly, and you’ll know just by watching whether or not your body is capable of being that flexible just at that moment. If you simply look at an image of the end result, you won’t know how to get there, so even if you try it and you are flexible, you might not get where you want to be, and if you’re not flexible, you could get hurt. 

Have A Good Mat 

When you are practicing yoga, yoga mats are about the only piece of equipment you’ll need. With that in mind, you can ensure you are buying a good mat, and if that means spending a little more than you thought you would, you won’t be purchasing anything else, so perhaps you can afford to boost your budget a little.  

When you’re looking for a mat you’ll need to consider the thickness (if you want to do more balancing postures, a thin mat is better, whereas if you prefer core work, a thicker mat will be more comfortable), the material (vinyl mats last longer, but rubber mats are more eco-friendly), and the texture (the bumpier the mat, the more it will stay still). 

Warm Up

Yoga is all about stretching and balance, and because of that, it’s easy to forget that you have to warm up just like you would with any kind of exercise. After all, you’re going to be stretching when you’re doing yoga, so why do it twice? 

The reason is that warming up isn’t just about loosening your muscles (although that is part of it); it’s also about improving your circulation and increasing your heart rate. If you do this right at the start, you’ll be able to practice for much longer, and you won’t be quite so susceptible to injuries. Plus, the exercises you do will have a much better effect on your physical health.