A Simple Yoga Hack Habit Stack

For A Daily Yoga Practice

Why Do I Skip Yoga When It Makes Me Feel so Good?

How do you feel when you practice yoga? Maybe the better question is, “How do you feel when you don’t practice yoga?”

I love the way yoga makes my body less creaky and more fluid. I also sleep better, have better balance, and generally feel less stressed.

When I consistently skip yoga, my lower back hurts and my body tightens up— “not in the wow look at how tight and toned I am” way, but in the “damn my back and hips are tight and painful” way.

So why do I consistently find myself blowing it off even though at the end of the day I’m stiff and achy from sitting at my desk? You’d think if anything would inspire me to fit in a yoga practice, that would do it. It didn’t. Instead, I continued to skip yoga and allowed my body, especially my hips and back, to stiffen up.

My lightbulb moment came when I had to retrieve a pen that my cat batted under the sofa. Getting down on the floor wasn’t the problem; it was getting back up that seemed a lot harder than it should have been. I’d never found it difficult to get up off the floor. How had this happened?

I realized if I didn’t want to feel like the Tin Man after a hard rain, I needed to work on my flexibility. Pronto!

Without yoga my body felt like the Tin Man after a hard rain.

My Yoga Habit Stack

I had a dilemma. I knew a daily yoga session would help me regain flexibility, but I didn’t have 45 minutes or an hour to devote to yoga every day. Then, I remembered the concept of “habit stacking” I read about in the book Atomic Habits by James Clear. I pulled out the book for a refresher. I thought, “this might work for me with yoga.”

If you’re not familiar with habit stacking, it’s pairing a current habit you already do every day with the new habit you want to implement. I have a well-established pre-bedtime wind-down routine. It seldom varies. Every night before I go to bed, I floss, brush my teeth, and wash my face. I literally cannot sleep unless I do each one of these things. So, I decided to start my getting-ready-for-bed routine a little earlier and added (stacked) a short yoga practice at the end.

I knew the key to my success would be keeping the yoga practice short and simple, with poses that I could do without getting my mat out. All the poses are done either standing or in bed. No more excuses!

My habit stack looks like this: Floss > Brush my teeth > Wash my face > Short yoga routine > Go to sleep. I’ll admit, initially there were nights when I felt like skipping the yoga and going straight to bed. When I felt inclined to skip it, I thought about feeling like a decrepit old lady when I tried to get up off the floor. That thought got me through the habit-building stage.

Habit Stacking Worked!

After about two weeks of stacking yoga onto my evening routine, it became . . . well, routine. It was so easy! Simply by stacking a short yoga practice onto fixed habits, I’ve done daily yoga for several months. I now make time for yoga every night, even if I’m tired and don’t feel like it.

My body feels much better, and it helps me sleep. It’s still harder than it used to be for me to get up off the floor, but a consistent yoga practice has made it much easier. I owe a debt of gratitude to my cat, Fred, for forcing me to retrieve that pen.

Since habit stacking worked so well for me in adopting a daily yoga routine, I need to use it in other areas of my life. I agree with

Claire Collis

, who recently wrote about how habit stacking is changing her life. Habit stacking can be life changing. Better yet, it’s practically painless!

My Bedtime Yoga Hack

This is the routine I do most days. It usually takes me about 15 minutes. It requires minimal space, and it doesn’t require a mat. I added descriptions and links to videos showing how to do each of the poses.

• Half Sun Salutations. A half sun salutation in yoga is a simplified version of the full sun salutation sequence. To perform a half sun salutation, start in standing position feet together or hip-width apart. Inhale and raise your arms overhead, palms touching or facing each other. Exhale and fold forward, bending from the hips and keeping your spine long. Inhale and lift your torso halfway up, bringing your hands to your shins or thighs, and look slightly forward. Exhale and fold forward again. Inhale as you sweep your arms out to the sides and come up to standing, reaching your arms overhead. Exhale and bring your hands back to your heart center. Remember to synchronize your breath with the movements and maintain proper alignment. Practice mindfulness and listen to your body's limitations to prevent any strain or injury.

  As the name suggests, sun salutations are usually done as an energizing sequence to greet the sun, but they do relax the body and calm the mind. So when I perform my half sun salutations before bed, I set a calming intention and perform the postures slowly with deep, focused, and calming breaths.

• Downward-Facing Dog using a wall. Stand three or four feet in front of a wall. Place your hands on the wall at shoulder height and roughly shoulder distance apart. Begin to step your feet further away from the wall until your arms are roughly in line with your spine. Press your hands into the wall, draw your shoulder blades away from your ears, and let your neck relax. Focus your gaze toward at a fixed point on the floor below you.

• Standing cat cow. Stand tall. Place your hands on your hips and draw elbows behind the back. Place your feet hip-distance apart. Inhale, lift your chest, and move your bum back. This is known as the cow and is excellent for stretching the front chest muscles. Now exhale. Pull your belly toward the spine. Bend at the knees, and round the back while bending over an imaginary ball. This is the cat. Pull your chin toward your chest if it can be done without discomfort. 

• Figure 4 Stretch. Lie on your back on the bed with your knees bent and your feet flat on the bed. Bend one leg and place your ankle on your opposite knee.

  Now grasp the back of your thigh or the front of your knee (of the leg on the bed) and gently pull your knee toward you. Your foot will lift off the bed as you hold this stretch. Release your foot back to the bed to return to the starting position.

  Repeat this exercise on the opposite side. As you do each rep, you might feel a stretch in your hip muscles and the back of your leg.

• Lying Twist. Lie face up on the bed and draw your knees in to your chest. Keeping your upper body lying flat, slowly drop your bent legs over to the left, feeling a twist in the right side body. Press your left hand on top of your knees and extend your right arm to the side at shoulder height for a deeper stretch. Look to the right and hold here for several breaths for a gentle neck stretch. Switch sides and repeat.

• Reclined Butterfly. Lying face up on the bed, bend your knees and bring the soles of your feet to touch and allow your knees to fall open away from each other. Focus on breathing deeply for three to five minutes while holding this pose.

• Knees to chest. Lie on your back with knees bent and hug your knees o your chest. I hug my knees with my hands on my thighs behind my knees to avoid any pressure on the knees.

• Relaxation. Lie in bed with your eyes closed, hands at your sides palms up, and let your legs fall open. Focus on your breathing.

An individual may have certain health conditions that make it unsafe or difficult to do some poses or movements involved in the practice. Lower back, neck, and joint pain can be made worse by specific postures and movements in yoga. If you’re beginning a practice, check with your doctor first.

Do you practice yoga regularly? How do you make it part of your routine? Tell me in the comments below how you could use a habit stack in your life.

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