Get your Om on this Winter

Call attention to your downward dog on these cold days. Winter is an excellent time to practice yoga. You can feel wonderfully warm, boost your mood and manage post-holiday stress. Yoga brings plenty of health benefits during every practice, but during the winter months there are even more reasons you should stick with your mat.

Keep yourself from going into yoga hibernation this winter for these beneficial reasons:

1. The holiday season often leaves us feeling anxious, overworked and stressed. Even with the holidays in the past, stress can linger. Yoga can help you bring balance to the bustling days and help you foster a sense of harmony and happiness that you can carry beyond the mat.
2. A long winter practice will help you relax. The slow, gentle movements of a challenging practice can bring you calm and an inner zen that will help you rest when your head finally hits the pillow. No more tossing and turning!
3. The cold weather can cause tight muscles and joints that may be intensified after a hard day of skiing or snowboarding. Yoga stretches and poses can assist in releasing tight muscles and keep you from feeling stiff.
4. There is no better time of year to fall in love with heated or hot yoga to warm your winter bones on the coldest days. A hot yoga class will detoxify you, keep you active and warm you up from the inside out.
5. Feel like you overindulged lately? Yoga helps to bring awareness into the moment. This is a skill you can use before you overeat at a weekend party or prior to purchasing too much on a shopping binge once those holiday gift cards have been used up!
6. What is better than yoga by candlelight? Yoga in front of the fireplace! Yoga doesn’t require much more than your mat and a desire to practice. Warming up at home instead of warming up the car to go to the gym is a great way to spice up your winter workout routine with a twist on your normal practice.
7. Oh, and did we mention it is the only chance to exercise barefoot until the summer? An ode to daydream about warmer weather!

Are you inspired to keep up your practice or give yoga a try knowing all the benefits that can come from winter yoga?