The most energetic, transcendental, and illuminating experience is morning yoga. You’ll notice a wide range of improvements in your body, mind, and everything that makes you once you make it a daily practice. Its therapeutic powers may aid persons suffering from sadness and anxiety, as well as those struggling with healthy eating and other health difficulties.
Practice makes perfect.
Yoga can be practiced in the morning for various physical, emotional, spiritual, social, and traditional reasons. On the other hand, morning practice can be challenging for many folks who would instead hit the snooze button than roll out their mat. The following are 21 of the most important reasons you should practice yoga in the morning.
- SPIRITUAL BENEFITS:
Begin the Day with Self-Care
Beginning your day with yoga in the morning is an act of self-care and self-love. Yoga is an investment in oneself, one’s health, and well-being. It is a spiritual act that yields no immediate or material benefits. Instead, the advantages of yoga are accrued gradually throughout a lifetime of practice. Knowing this, practicing yoga first thing in the morning is a nod to self-care and a little step toward enlightenment on a lifelong journey.
Morning Meditation is a Sacred Tradition
Yoga is a technique that has been practiced for thousands of years and has many ancient traditions that should be respected. One of these customs is to do yoga on an empty stomach first thing in the morning. An example is the Mysore tradition of practicing Ashtanga yoga sequences as early as 3 or 4 a.m. Many yoga teachers emphasize the traditional value of starting the day with a yoga practice to dedicate the day to a yogic way of living.
Morning is a Spiritual Hour
According to the Vedas (old yogic teachings), morning is a spiritual time of day. At this time of day, spirituality is at its peak. As a result, any spiritual endeavor, including yoga, is best practiced in the morning to reap the benefits of a clear and calming experience.
- WELL-BEING BENEFITS
Pay Attention to What You Ate the Day Before
A morning yoga practice allows you to tune into what meals impact you and how they affect you. Starting your day with such physiological attention will keep you aware of how your body reacts to the food you ate the day before. With this knowledge, you can adjust your diet for the rest of the day based on what works for you and what doesn’t.
Cravings for Healthier Food for the Rest of the Day
Many people associate unhealthy food desires with stressful situations in their daily lives, and food is used as a coping technique.
When people are in tune with their physiological sensations and emotional goals, they can tell the difference between when they are using food as a crutch and when they are starving. Furthermore, more healthy and nourishing foods will be desired because they help the body feel better during yoga as it brings new awareness to the body, heightened sensations, clarity of mind and goals, and self-love.
Assists in Dealing with Interpersonal Difficulties
A typical day presents numerous problems, many of which relate to your relationships and reactions to other people. Yoga stresses the idea of non-attachment (aparigraha) and a sense of connectedness with all beings rather than being irritated or attached to external situations. A morning yoga practice may assist in easing your interpersonal issues throughout the day.
- PHYSICAL BENEFITS
Yoga is Ideally Practiced Empty Stomach
Yoga should ideally be practiced on an empty stomach. Of course, the best time to have an empty stomach is first thing in the morning, yet another reason to incorporate a morning yoga practice into your regimen. For starters, this will help you prevent nausea or pain caused by a full stomach during poses like inversions and twists. In the morning, an empty stomach will also aid improve your metabolism and kickstart your digestive system’s peristalsis.
No poses are forbidden
Morning yoga practices can be more liberating than evening yoga practices. One good reason to practice yoga in the morning is to avoid limits and perform any pose or asana you wish. It is best to confine oneself to more soothing positions in the evening and avoid performing restorative poses. With early practice, none of these constraints apply.
Controls Your Circadian Rhythms
Many people identify circadian rhythms with sleep and nighttime, but they are equally crucial in the morning. Once you incorporate a morning yoga practice into your habit, your body adjusts, and your circadian rhythm and hormones revolve around it. When you wake up, your body expects yoga, and your pineal gland releases hormones. Melatonin is one of these hormones, and it is vital for sleep regulation. The mornings’ sluggish, slow, and tired feelings will fade.
Helps Improve Your Metabolism
A morning yoga practice moves your body and internal organs, such as your digestive system. This, in turn, boosts your metabolism. Yoga practice in the morning helps enhance your metabolism for the day ahead. Practicing twisting asanas on an empty stomach, in particular, will be the most efficient at increasing your metabolism. This will allow your body to spend energy more efficiently throughout the day.
Helps the Digestive System Get Started
Many parts of yoga are beneficial to digestive health. Child’s pose (balasana), corpse pose (savasana), and meditation can help relax the mind and manage stress hormones like cortisol, which may harm your digestive system. Twisting positions will also detoxify organs, including your kidneys, liver, and intestines, stimulating intestinal peristalsis and getting your digestion flowing. Doing yoga in the morning prepares your digestive system for the rest of the day.
Recharge Your Heart and Lungs
Yoga can also have a favorable effect on your internal organs, such as your heart and lungs. Each movement in yoga is held together by the breath, and there is no yoga without breath. Because of the emphasis on breath work, regular yoga practice engages and challenges your heart and lungs. When yoga is practiced in the morning, the entire cardiovascular system gets a head start for the day.
Reduced Back Pain at Work
Sitting is hugely taxing on the body, yet most people spend most of their workday sitting, and this can cause chronic back discomfort. However, doing yoga in the morning can relieve back discomfort before your workday begins.
Recharge Your Body
Many people are sluggish in the morning, blaming it on not being a “morning person” and relying on coffee or the snooze button. Anyone may become a morning person with a morning yoga practice, and this is due to the refreshing effect that yoga has. If you want to feel energized in the morning, do more energetic yoga poses (asanas). Warrior stances, for example, are very energizing.
Sun Salutations are Powerfully Done Right in the Morning
The Surya namaskars, or sun salutations, are a popular and beneficial yoga sequence. Each sun salutation strengthens and stretches every major muscle group in the body. This routine is usually performed with the rising sun (hence the name sun salutations). The practice progresses from downward dog to standing erect in front of the mat, imitating the increasing movement of the sun and maintaining the body in harmony with nature.
- EMOTIONAL BENEFITS
Establish a Healthy Routine
When your routine is disrupted, everything from your digestion to your feelings can suffer. Developing a consistent daily habit will keep you healthy and well. Commit to practicing yoga in the morning for a week. Once you start feeling its significant effects, you’ll want to make it a habit, which is the first step in establishing a consistent routine.
Allows You to Stop Procrastinating
Begin your day the way you want it to end.
It is tempting to close your eyes instead of exercise in the morning, but this is another type of self-defeating procrastination. Commit yourself to practice yoga first thing in the morning. When you do this, you start your day with a commitment. This will carry over into the rest of your day, and you will be on your way to quitting procrastinating.
- MENTAL BENEFITS:
Relax Your Mind
Nirodhah citta vritti yogas.- Yoga Sutras 1.2 by Patanjali
This says that “yoga is the confinement of mind-stuff.” This “mental stuff” can be alleviated with a morning yoga practice, allowing the day to begin fresh and clear.
Starting your day with a clear head allows you to enter your work and relationships with clarity. However, the deeds, food, and ideas of the day before can often fester and obscure the mind as you begin your day. Practicing yoga in the morning is an excellent method to address this issue and begin your day with a clear mind. Studies have shown yoga not only cleanses the mind but also impacts brain structure when done regularly over time.
Reduce Your Anxiety and Stress
Yoga is well-known for its ability to alleviate tension and anxiety, and this behavior has been investigated and documented in clinical experiments. Another notion is that yoga has the power to modify the physiological stress response through lowering blood pressure, regulating pulse, and other means. Starting your day with yoga practice is a sure method to alleviate stress and anxiety for the rest of the day.
Conclusion
New ones that bring equivalent benefits to mind and body must be introduced to replace unhelpful behaviors, which is where yoga practice comes in. Yoga, in addition to improving mental clarity and relaxation, increases the release of endorphins (happy hormones) and makes the body a more physically comfortable place to live.
Yoga in the morning is fantastic! After 7-8 hours of sleep (ideally), our bodies respond lovingly to exercise, and our minds are clear and open to pleasant ideas and messages. After a long siesta, our breath is ready for us to deepen and increase its potency, and our energy is simply waiting to be roused up.
