Do not let a tight schedule discourage you from practicing yoga.  There are benefits that can be gained from short bursts of asana practice.

[This entry is part of a series that looks at how your life can benefit from quick bursts of asana practice.  Keep an eye out for additional entries.]

If you have a traditional 9-5 job, or work even longer hours, you might find it difficult to get an entire asana practice in before your make the mad rush to the office.

A quick fifteen minute fix, may be the answer. Try to do fifteen minutes of asana before the morning mayhem begins and bring the bliss of your inner light in to the office with you.

Asana Practice: The goal is to help awaken the body in an integrated and intentional way.  Listen deeply to what your body wants and needs on a particular morning.  Perhaps you wake up feeling energized and want to run through a few sun salutations before your day gets moving.  On another morning, you might find that rolling around on your back doing restorative poses is the perfect way to work the kinks out.  This is your body and your day.  Start it out the way that will serve you best!

Benefits gained:

1. Doing yoga, or other activities that elongate the body, first thing in the morning, can help prevent aches and pains from developing throughout the day. For example, I have neck and back issues from shattering two vertebrae in my neck ten years ago.  In addition, years of intense athletics have left my joints with early signs of arthritis.  If I keep my joints lubricated with yoga, and other forms of movement, I live largely pain free.  If I don’t, I can be in a world of hurt.  In a perfect world, I do an entire asana practice before I start the rest of my day, but this isn’t always practical.  I can largely eliminate pain from new and past injuries if I open the body up, with fifteen minutes of yoga, in the morning.

2. Exercise before breakfast stimulates the metabolism. I am a strong proponent of moving the body in the morning, BEFORE you have your first meal of the day.  (Check out a short article about the benefits of pre-breakfast workouts on my other blog: http://cosmickatie.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=55&action=edit).

3. Starting your day by clearing the mind and engaging meditative mind helps prevent needless mind chatter throughout the day. Waylon Lewis, from Elephant Journal, (see elephantjournal.com) once wrote an article encouraging people to meditate first thing in the morning, before they checked their phones or emails.  I have followed this advice for well over a year and noticed a huge shift in my life.  Deep meditative states can be reached, immediately upon waking up, because the dream state is not far away.  Practicing yoga, or seated meditation, first thing in the morning, allows deeper more sustained meditative states, with greater ease, throughout the day.

Lesson Learned: On busy days, practice asana for 15 minutes to open the body and set the tone for the day.