If you’re looking for a quick and simple way to slip a wellbeing practice into your day, yoga teacher Vicky Fox recommends this 5-minute yoga routine

Words: Vicky Fox | Images: Shutterstock

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 5-minute yoga routine, 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.

You can tailor your practices to suit your time, your energy levels or what you need in that moment. This, I think, is really crucial when taking back a sense of control and when healing – you get to decide what you want to practise, what your focus will be and how long you get to practise for. Here are just a few of my five-minute practices to get you started…

5-minute yoga routine

5-minute savasana

The savasana pose gives us the opportunity to stop – to become a human being, not a human doing. It is worth taking the time to find all the props you might need to be able to lie down in relaxation. Are you warm enough? Do you need socks or a blanket to keep you warm? Our body starts to cool down when we lie down so it is worth taking the time to make sure you will be warm enough being still for five minutes.

You might also want a blanket under your head or a rolled-up blanket under your knees. Play with the distance of your feet to find a place where you feel you have space across the back of your body. You might prefer to bend your knees, feet on the floor, or have soles of feet together knees wide resting on blocks, so you can relax them fully.

Allow your physical body to settle into the mat and feel supported by the mat and the earth beneath the mat. A body scan can help to draw your attention to areas of your physical body.

5 minutes for digestion (apanasana flow)

This pose stimulates apana and samana vayus [different types of prana], and is good for digestion and elimination. The movements create space and give you a gentle massage.

  • Lie back. Interlace your fingers and, as you inhale, stretch your arms up over your head.
  • Exhale and hug your right knee in (pictured).
  • Inhale and stretch back out, bringing your right leg back down to the floor and your arms back over your head.
  • Exhale and hug your left knee in. Repeat three more times on each side.

I’m a yoga teacher – this is my go-to morning flow when I’m short on time

5 minutes for strength (glute lifts)

Bridge pose engages the muscles in your butt, your glutes, which aid forward propulsion.

  • Lie on your back with both knees bent and feet flat on the floor or mat, arms at your sides or touching your heels.
  • Pressing your feet into the mat, inhale and tuck your tailbone under and raise your hips away from the floor (pictured). Exhale, and lower your hips, one vertebra at a time.
  • Repeat this nine more times. For less of a challenge, pause at the bottom, resting your hips on your mat before you lift back up. For more of a challenge, barely touch the floor as you come down and lift straight back up.

If you only have 1 minute…

If you’re seriously short on time, try this one pose: releasing your hamstrings with a yoga strap.

  • Lie on your back.
  • Bend your right knee in. Take your yoga strap over the ball of your left foot, straighten your leg and extend towards the ceiling, foot flexed.
  • Exhale and relax your shoulders and jaw.
  • Use the strap to draw your thigh bone down into your pelvis, instead of pulling the leg towards your face. Keep your spine neutral. Lengthen your left hip away from your shoulder so that you have length in the left side of your lower back.
  • Keep your right knee bent or, if okay on your lower back, straighten your left leg and flex the ankle.
  • Take five breaths here.
  • Deepen the stretch by taking your arms overhead (pictured).
  • Change sides and repeat.