Two years ago on the 20th June 2018, I started doing yoga every morning. If you didn’t catch it, you can read all about my 365 Days of Yoga and all the benefits I found from practicing my new morning routine.
I’m happy to say that after I completed my year of yoga, I continued on. I have now completed my second year of yoga with only missing a few days.
Until Lockdown.
With the kids school closed, it meant that I had more time flexibility in the mornings because I wasn’t doing with the school run.
It started with getting up a little later for morning yoga and fitting in workouts during the afternoons. After a week or so it shifted to working out in the mornings while using yoga as my cool down. However, with the endorphins flying round my body, I was purely focussing on the stretches and not giving any thought to the mindfulness and breathing side of yoga.
A year into morning yoga, my plan was to fit in a 20mins hiit/cycle/run before hand, but I only managed this a few times. Why? Because I find it hard to get up early in the winter. You would think that years of getting up at 6:30am for school and 5:30am for the London commute, would have programmed me into a early morning machine… but no. I hugely dislike getting up in the dark. This is also why I needed to implement morning yoga into my life in the summer months, and why I’ve now started the early morning workouts… I just can’t start something like this in the winter, I find it far too difficult.
The Lockdown and the lighter mornings have massively helped with getting up earlier and so I have managed to get myself into our home gym (the garage), early most days. I have an espresso and a homemade flapjack before working out to get me going, and I’m really into it! Now one of my children has returned to school, I have to get in the gym earlier to be finished and ready for the school run.
My goal is to carry on these morning workouts even when school has completely returned and the sunrise gets later and later. I know some people have to throw everything into starting a new habit / lifestyle change, but I am not one of those people. I have to take small steps to make them stick. If my goal was to get up an hour earlier every morning to do yoga, it would have lasted days. Instead, I made myself get up just 10-20mins earlier which was far more achievable for me and has become a daily habit.
I have put the yoga in place, which took me a few years to commit to. I have put the morning workouts in place, which has taken me nearly a year to accomplish. Now, how long will it take me to implement workouts followed by yoga, and not just using it to stretch?
In my 365 Day of Yoga blog post, I talk about how much morning yoga changes my mood and sets me up in a positive way for the day ahead. I get different result from working out because I’ve been far more active, I’m fired up and motivated for the day ahead. I don’t prefer either vibe, I’m just happy to not be grumpy first thing in the morning when parenting anymore, which has been a HUGE help when practicing patience when homeschooling my kids through a global pandemic!
Have you been more or less active during lockdown and why? Have you taken up a new fitness routine or hobby and what is it? Who has drank more wine than normal? I’d love to hear what you’ve been up to!
Wearing Active Wear by Island Feather
Lex Balladon 