How to start doing yoga at home for beginners (with pictures and videos)

How to start doing yoga at home?

“Put your heart, mind, and soul into even your smallest acts. This is the secret of success.” -Swami Sivananda

You want to practice yoga but cannot find time to dedicate a fixed schedule for the group practice? Do not have a  personal trainer or yoga studio in the area? or have any other personal reason that’s stopping your from practicing yoga?

Well, whatever the reason may be, you can start practicing yoga at home.

I received a query from a friend asking me how can she practice yoga at home, where to start from, there are so many different kind of practices and so many poses that are overwhelming for the beginners.

This inspired me to write this blog post to help everyone who is thinking of starting yoga practice at home. I am simply putting down the format that I use in my Group and Personal classes including only basic yoga asanas or poses here.

So, lets start ????

The practice is basically divided into the following format:-

• Grounding
• Warm up
• Surya Namaskar / Sun Salutation
• Asana / Pose Practice
• Restoration
• Closing

Approx time: 45- 50 minutes

How to start doing yoga at home

1. Grounding

Grounding helps us in bringing our awareness to the present, it helps us in connecting us to our self, calms your mind and helps you prepare for the practice. One of the main factors in yoga is to be mindful of what you are doing, your breath, your movements, everything should be done mindfully and that happens when you are focused on the present.

How to ground yourself? (Approx 5 minutes)

These steps may seem a lot in reading however, when you actually do them, would approx take 5 minutes or so. Don’t worry if you miss something, there’s always a next session.

• Sit in a comfortable position (crossed legs or sitting on the knees) with your back straight
• You can keep your hands in whatever mudra (posture) is most comfortable for you. (see the image below for reference)

• Close your eyes.
• Relax your mind and your body.
• Start to de-clutter your mind of any thoughts or distractions by bringing your awareness to your present.
• Your present, which is your breath, start observing it, observe your inhalation and exhalation.
• Your mind may start to wonder, which is fine, just engage your mind, ask it to focus on your breath, keep reminding it to focus on the breath.
• Ignore everything around, ignore the thoughts and keep focusing on your breath.
• Every breath when taken mindfully would help you relax your mind.
• When your mind starts to walk away from distractions you would start feeling a sense of lightness and calmness in your mind, just stay there, if you get distracted come back, it is perfectly fine to get distracted, just keep coming back.
• Use this moment to connect with yourself, let all the thoughts fade away leaving you with yourself.
• In the last few minutes think about your health goals and prepare your mind for the practice, release any disbelief or doubts.
• Join your palms, take 2-3 long inhalations and exhalations and on every next exhalation chant ‘Om’ 1-3 times, chant to relax your mind, feel the vibrations of the chant in your mind. Do it mindfully.
• Keep your eyes closed and rub your palms to generate heat and cup your eyes with your palms lightly and spread the energy around your body.
• Join your hands, open your palms and blink your eyes to open looking into the palms with a smile. (Refer to the video below)

2. Warm up

Warm up helps you get your body ready for the practice, it increases the temperature of the muscles, increases the circulation of blood, loosens the joints which helps in preventing injury. Warm up movements may seem quite easy and you may think of ignoring them however do not. WARM UP IS IMPORTANT!

Here’s a video with some warm up movements you can use for your practice (5-8 minutes)

3. Surya Namaskar / Sun Salutation

Surya Namaskar / Sun Salutation is a basic yoga practice which stimulates your whole body, it includes 12 poses or asanas that helps warm up your body even further and also helps to tone your body. Surya Namaskar is recommended in the morning however you can do it anytime when you are practicing yoga.

It is important to align each movement with the breath in Surya Namaskar to do it correctly and reap its benefits.

Refer to the video below for Surya Namaskar poses and sequence (3-5 rounds)

4. Asana / Pose Practice

Asana / Pose Practice helps in increasing endurance and flexibility, the various movements in the asana practice opens up your body and stimulates every part of your body, different asanas have different benefits physically and physiologically.

It is important to do the asana practice mindfully and with proper breathing. Do not push your limits too much during the practice, listen to your body and let it adapt to the pose with time. Perseverance is the key to do any asana and attain proper alignments.

Important: Yoga is about uniting your mind with your body and the key to this union is your breath, when you align your breath with your movements it would help you get the maximum benefit of the posture.

Please keep in mind that it is perfectly fine to not go deep into the posture until your body is ready to do so, this takes time and practice and that is why it is important to listen to your body, respect it’s limitation and slowly work on them. Do not try to compete with your counterparts or anyone else, that is not the goal. The goal is to live a healthy and stress free life.

Below are few asanas that you can include in your daily practice, as you start to progress, you can scale up or include other asanas in your practice.

An important factor to keep in mind is to do counter poses as well to bring your body back in its natural state and keep it happy and healthy. What this means is, if you are doing a lot of forward bending poses, do some backward bending poses too.

Below are few yoga asanas / poses that you can start with

A. Virabhadrasana 2 or Warrior 2

Good for stretching your shoulders, hips and groins. Develops the sense of balance and stimulates your abdominal organs.

B. Virabhadrasana 1 or Warrior 1

Strengthens your shoulders, arms, back, legs and ankles. Improves balance and focus.

C. Vriksasana or Tree Pose

Builds strength in legs, ankles and calves. Improves balance and focus. Good for people suffering from sciatica.

D. Adho Mukha Svanasana or Downward Dog Pose

Strengthens your arms, legs and shoulders. Calms your mind and helps relieve mild depression.

E. Kumbhakasana – Plank Pose

Tones core muscles, strengthens arms, wrists and shoulders. Helps in burning fat around the abdomen area.

F. Marjariasana or Cat and Cow Pose

A very relaxing pose for relaxing the spine and making it flexible. Helpful in backaches and improving posture. Massages abdominal organs and hence improves digestion.

G. Bhujangasana or Cobra Pose

Relieves backache, keeps spine healthy, beneficial for abdominal organs like liver and kidneys. Helps in menstrual and gynecological disorders. Eases constipation, good for stimulating the appetite. Opens of your chest as well as heart and is helpful for people suffering from depression.

H. Paschimottanasana or Seated Forward Bend

This asana stretches your hamstrings, spine and shoulders. Calms your mind and helps relieve mild depression. Good for digestion, stimulates digestive organs and eases menstrual discomfort.

I. Balasana or Child’s Pose

Lengthens, stretches and relaxes the spine and whole body. Massages the internal organs and abdominal muscles. Improves digestion as well.

J. Sethubandasana or Bridge Pose

Excellent pose for lower back pain. Calms the brain and helps alleviate stress and mild depression. Reduces insomnia, anxiety, fatigue, headache and backache. Good for digestion. Stimulates thyroid and abdominal organs.

5. Restoration

Restoration helps to cool the body down and relax after your Yoga practice. All the asanas bring a lot of changes in your body and its energies and to assimilate these changes the mind and the body needs time to relax or you may feel irritated.

Coming out of the Savasana

• Once relaxed completely, bring your awareness back to your body.
• Keep your eyes closed.
• Move your toes and fingers.
• Bring your feet together and take your hands back towards your head to give yourself a nice long stretch.
• With the help of your hands roll over to your right hand side (left is fine too) and relax for few breaths.
• When you are ready, keeping your eyes closed, come to a comfortable seating position and proceed to closing steps mentioned below.

6. Closing

Closing s an important part of the Yoga practice after the relaxation or restoration part. It completes your yoga practice and helps you take out a moment of appreciation for your practice.

• As you are sitting in a comfortable sitting position after the savasana, take your awareness to your breath.
• Observe the calmness in your mind and in your body.
• Take your awareness to everything you are grateful for, think about all the good things, all the good people and thank the Universe for giving you everything you have in your life.
• Join your palms, take 2-3 long inhalations and exhalations and on every next exhalation chant ‘Om’ 1-3 times, chant to relax your mind, feel the vibrations of the chant in your mind. Do it mindfully.
• Keep your eyes closed and rub your palms to generate heat and cup your eyes with your palms lightly and spread the energy around your body.
• Join your hands, open your palms and blink your eyes to open looking into the palms with a smile. (Refer to the Grounding video)

Thank you so much for reading. If you have any questions or feedback, please mention in the comments section below.

Namaste!

Also Read:

• How to do Bhujangasana (Cobra Pose) – Bhujangasana Benefits and Contraindications
• Yoga and Breathing Exercises to help in COVID recovery – Yoga for Covid Recovery
• What is Yoga Nidra? Yog Nidra Benefits – Technique to Stimulate Mind, Body, and Soul