Best Yoga Stretches to Do Every Day

                          Best Yoga Stretches to Do Every Day

 When you picture a yoga class, the first images that come to mind might be human-pretzel like poses and intimidating breath work meditation. But yoga doesn’t have to be inaccessible or hard—it doesn’t even have to take place in an hour-long studio practice. You can benefit from simple daily yoga stretches performed in the comfort of your own home.

“With yoga, practicing regularly is more important than doing complex poses,” says Brandt Passalacqua, a certified yoga instructor, yoga therapist, and the founder, director, and lead teacher at Breathing Deeply Yoga Therapy. “Even simple stretches can have a big impact on health and mobility when practiced daily or a few times per week. By stretching on a regular basis, you can lengthen your muscles over time and improve your range of motion, all of which leads to greater flexibility and mobility.”

It’s hard to grasp that just a few minutes of your morning can make such a big difference—but a little really does go a long way. A study published in Annals of Internal Medicine found that yoga designed for back pain can be as effective at relieving pain as physical therapy. The American Osteopathic Association says that a regular yoga practice can increase flexibility, improve energy, and help you stay protected from future injury.

Is 10 minutes of yoga a day enough?

“Even 10 minutes of stretching a day can improve your mobility and benefit your health,” says Passalacqua. “It’s more important to be consistent than to devote large chunks of time to stretching. In fact, holding poses for too long can run the risk of overstretching your muscles, leading to soreness or injury.”

If you can work on linking the stretches to your inhales and exhales, even better, says Kate Lombardo, co-owner and director at YogaRenew. “Then you also get the added bonus of bringing a level of mindfulness and meditation which decreases stress and benefits the nervous system,” she explains.

The best yoga stretches

With such a great return on little investment, there’s no reason not to try daily stretching. The poses below are some of the most common positions you'll find in yoga flows—a great place to start. If you get familiar with them (along with their modifications) you may even eventually feel ready to hop into a wider practice.