Challenges, introductions and other ways to build a habit
Happy New Year! Are you making any resolutions for 2021? Given that most of us are back to living under strict COVID-related restrictions, now is probably not the time to take on anything too arduous. The wellness industry’s presentation of ‘challenges’ can be problematic (see my blog post from December), and the potential for these messages to harm our mental, physical and emotional health is probably even greater right now.
Having said all of that, now might be a great time to try something enjoyable, something manageable, something relaxing or energizing. Perhaps you’ve appreciated the regular connection of 12 Days of Yoga, and like having a prompt in your inbox each morning. Or maybe you’d like to further develop one of the concepts we’ve introduced during these on-demand videos, such as meditation. If so, here are some of the structured challenges, introductions and courses that I’ve enjoyed following in the last year or so. All of them are free to access, and the content providers also regularly offer other free resources.
Meditation and mindfulness
Kelly Smith offers peaceful, welcoming meditations via the Yoga For You website and the Mindful in Minutes podcast. I recently did her 7-day introduction to meditation, which is a series of daily emails that you can activate at any time. Each day’s email includes a link to a 20-minute video introducing a different approach to meditation. I enjoyed it so much that I’ve since subscribed to Kelly’s podcast, where she releases guided meditations in a similar style to those from the introduction. Her calming voice and choice of words make the podcasts really relaxing.
There are several well-known meditation and mindfulness apps that require a monthly subscription, but one of my favourites is Insight Timer. A lot of its content is accessible on the free version, which is fairly easy to navigate and does not include adverts. I really like the personalized timer, which you can set for meditation or any other activity where you’d like some gentle background sound. You can set the duration of your session, how to break it into intervals, ambient sounds to play throughout, and a starting and ending bell. Even just playing around with these settings is an interesting way to work out what sounds calm you down or annoy you. This is ideal if you want to try a 30-day meditation series in the style of our 12 Days of Yoga. You focus on your breathing for 1 minute on Day 1, 2 minutes on Day 2, and so on. So far I’ve not made it past Day 12 without falling asleep! But Insight Timer also has lots of structured courses, classes and guided meditations. There are so many that it can be a bit daunting to choose where to start, but you can filter the content by length, theme or activity. I’ve done the 40-day Mindfulness Daily course, with Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach, and it is very well-structured.
Yoga introductions
I often mention Amber Karnes because she is such a fantastic accessible yoga teacher. She creates content on lots of different platforms but I recently discovered her 7-day yoga explorer series, which is a week’s worth of emails ideal for finding comfortable and safe ways to practise yoga. Each day’s video is about 15 minutes long, and the topics include breathing, restorative yoga, standing poses, and making staple poses like downward dog more comfortable.
If you want to begin the year by building physical strength, power yoga might be for you. Dylan from Yoga Infusion offers a 30-day introduction to power yoga. The series is well-paced and includes clear explanations to help you develop confidence in strong poses. The videos are generally 20-30 minutes long, and they are sequenced so that you don’t work the same body part hard on consecutive days. Having said that, I’ve been doing this series as a once-or-twice a week hobby, so maybe you’d like to do the same and make it something to complete by the end of the year.
And how about if you want a weekly prompt rather than a daily pressure? If that’s you, then I definitely recommend subscribing to Dianne Bondy’s YouTube channel. She releases a new video practice every Wednesday. The videos are generally about 15 minutes in length and use props to help with accessibility. The themes vary a lot, from restorative practices through to strength-building for specific sports, but they are accessible and adaptable for most people, most of the time. You’ll recognize a lot of her ideas, since I regularly steal them for use in our classes!
I’d love to know how you get on with any of these programmes, or if there are other habits that you are developing based on your yoga practice. Remember that physical poses are only one aspect of yoga, and ‘the other seven limbs’ are just as important!