5-minute yoga

If you’re looking for a quick and simple way to slip a wellbeing practice into your day, yoga teacher Vicky Fox recommends trying a five-minute practice from her new book Time to Repair

How much time do you have available to practise yoga? Can you find five minutes? What do you need from your practice today? Take a moment to ask yourself, ‘What support do I need right now?’ Ask without judgment, so that you start to explore what you need, as opposed to what you think you should do. Your focus might be to support your digestive system by doing five minutes to aid digestion, or to stimulate the lymphatic system with five minutes to encourage lubrication and flow. Maybe you just need five minutes of calm or cooling. You are the only person who knows what it is like to be you and what will support to you in this moment, and this will change from day to day. Some days you might not be sure what it is that your body needs so you could just try flicking through my book, Time to Repair, and opening a random page and seeing where the universe takes you. What five-minute practice do you open up to?

TAKING IF FURTHER

You might find that you want to combine a few of the five-minute practices, and explore how a combination works for you. You can do this by observing how you feel after you have practised. If you are wanting to combine some five-minute practices, it is always good to start with something supine or seated, and end with something more calming and soothing such as a restorative practice or a breathing meditation practice; you might even sandwich some standing postures in-between these. You can be playful as you build onto your five-minute practice, and if you have more time it could grow into a 10-minute, 15-minute or even longer practice. You become the creator of your yoga by trying out different combinations of five-minute practices, and then noticing how it has made you feel afterwards.