Fix breakfast, take kids to school, commute to work, work our butts off, drive home in traffic, cook dinner, help with homework, clean up, and hope that we will have time to watch one of our favorite shows for even an hour before going to bed. And knowing that you have to do it all over again the next day. By the end of the evening, we are tense, exhausted, barely functioning. How many relate to this? I have a solution that will improve your daily life which doesn't include me begging the universe to make our days longer.
20 minutes! Yes, just 20 minutes... just by adding this yoga flow to your morning or evening practice. Inhale. Exhale. Feel your breath in your core. Take deep breaths where you will notice your diaphragm expanding and shrinking with every breath you take. Surya Namaskar aka. Sun Salutation is one of the first flows I practiced that allowed me to multi-task in yoga. When you first start yoga, sometimes we forget about focusing on our breathing due to us focusing on the movements. Especially when everything seems so new to us.
Sun Salutation is a flow that contains the same amount of movements, foward and backwards. After meditation, I like to practice this flow to get my blood flowing, feeling my body losing up in my legs, back, shoulders, hands, feet, and more. I repeat this flow a minimum of 5 times depending on how I feel once I am done.
Sun Salutation can boost your flexibility and strength, while improving your cardio-respiratory. Watch your stress and anxiety fade away as you move through this flow, plus reap the benefit of stimulating your brain. It aids preventing memory loss, boosts your focus, and builds brain cells in the body.
How does one flow affect your brain?
When you are exhaling the impure air from your lungs, then inhaling fresh oxygen into your lungs, you are providing your mind and body with the nutrience it needs to survive. Sometimes we take advantage of living and breathing. Fresh air is free, natural, and something we should regularly focus on adding to our everyday.
Sun Salutation Flows
I have put together two videos of my version of Sun Salutation. The videos are broken into beginners and intermediate. The flow should be practiced slower than in the video as this is a breathing exercise. I recommend taking 5 breaths (inhale/exhale) while holding each of the poses, starting with Mountain Pose.
Beginner Sun Salutation
Intermediate Sun Saluation
Final Thoughts
"Salutations is my fancy way of saying hello" Charlotte from Charlotte's Web. Think of Sun Salutation as being a form of saying "hello" to you everything connected to you. Surya means "Sun" and Namaskar means "Salutation" or "worship. Thus it is the salutation to the Sun God.
