Rise & Shine Yoga at The 224

Early Morning Yoga Regulates Your Sleep Rhythm & Balance Your Hormones-

Once you make practicing yoga in the morning a habit, your body becomes accustomed to getting up at the same time each day. This means you will awake feeling more energized and alert. While practicing yoga, the attention to breathing, meditation, and Asana has a positive effect on the endocrine system, which is responsible for long-term body maintenance. The endocrine system uses glands and hormones, to help keep you balanced. Certain yoga poses stimulate the pineal gland which excretes the melatonin hormone that regulates sleep patterns. As you regulate your circadian sleep cycles, the feeling of confusion upon awakening from sleep (due to widely changing sleep times) starts to disappear.

Early Morning Yoga Helps to Build a Healthy, Consistent Routine-

Studies have shown that 90% of those who exercise regularly, as in more than three times a week, are morning practitioners.  Having an established morning routine, encourages you to stick with it. Most of us live busy lives, and our time is valuable. It is understandably tough to fit in a yoga class during your busy day, and by the evening, things may come up that prevent you from practicing, or you're just feeling too tired.  Doing your practice first thing in the morning provides outstanding relief. Just imagine having your yoga practice and your exercise completely done with before 8 am! The feeling of self-empowerment that comes from being disciplined in your routine, brings increased mental strength into other areas of your life as well. Early morning yoga can help to build a healthy, consistent routine to your yoga practice.

Early morning yoga may boost your metabolism-

Practicing yoga early in the morning will warm up your digestive system and help nutrients move more easily through the body, causing it to metabolize carbs and fats more quickly. We know how amazing twists can be for wringing out the digestive system and invigorating our vital organs. Practicing these Asanas first thing in the morning, can awaken our bellies, easing any morning aches and pains. 

Early Morning Yoga is a Great Caffeine Alternative-

The specific type of breathing done during your early morning yoga practice, stimulates your entire body and mind.  All of that fresh oxygen helps wake up the brain, and it can feel like a jolt of caffeine; yet unlike coffee or tea, the energy boost you feel from deep pranayama breathing lasts all day long!  Early morning yoga helps you to feel more energized, yet grounded at the same time, thus helping you to accomplish more and be more productive during the day. Even on the days when I feel a little tired or less energy upon waking up, that certainly always changes after my hour long morning yoga practice.  You start to feel alive, with clarity and purpose, and you go about your day with absolutely no caffeine required!

Morning stretching prevents injury and achiness throughout the day-

Yoga lengthens and stretches our tight bodies, preparing us for all movement throughout the day. For those of us that sit at a desk, yoga poses in the morning counter those hours we spend sedentary. Yoga increases spinal flexibility and encourages better posture. The poses we hold when we first wake up, will set our muscle memory into effect for standing taller and walking easier as the day progresses.