As the clock resets and the calendar turns, there’s a gentle collective sigh—an invitation to begin anew. New Year is more than just a date on the calendar; it can also be a chance to bring clarity, purpose, and steady effort into all areas of your life. This makes it the perfect time to refine and deepen your New Year yoga practice and meditation routine.

You may have dabbled in yoga or mindfulness before, or maybe this is your first time stepping onto the mat. Either way, the beauty of a fresh start is that it welcomes you exactly as you are. By blending gentle movement, mindful breath, and quiet moments of stillness, you can create a holistic practice that supports you not only in January, but all year long.

1. Begin with intention

Start by asking yourself what you hope to cultivate in your New Year yoga practice. Are you looking to build more consistency, find inner calm, develop physical strength, or cultivate a regular meditation habit? Whatever your goal, placing intention at the heart of your practice turns routine exercises into meaningful rituals.

Try this journaling exercise

Before unrolling your mat, grab your favorite notebook, a cup of tea and write down three intentions for the coming year—something like “I will show up for myself, even if just for 10 minutes a day” or “I will breathe through challenges rather than running from them.” By writing these down, you set the tone for growth, ensuring your yoga practice and meditation sessions flow from a place of self-understanding.

2. The power of a consistent schedule

Much like plants need regular watering to flourish, your yoga practice thrives on consistency. Carving out a dedicated time for yoga and meditation, even if it’s just a few minutes each morning, helps ingrain these habits into your daily rhythm. Think of it as an investment in your own well-being, one that offers deep returns over time.

Tips for consistency:

• Choose a specific time: Morning yoga can energize you for the day ahead, while evening sessions help you unwind. Pick a time that aligns with your natural energy levels.
• Start small: Begin with short practices of 10–15 minutes. As the habit takes root, you’ll find yourself naturally drawn to longer sessions.
• Visual reminders: Keep your yoga mat rolled out in a visible spot, or place a soothing candle by your meditation cushion to prompt you to practice.

3. Your home yoga sanctuary

Your environment matters. Creating a welcoming space for your New Year yoga practice ensures that each session feels inviting rather than chore-like. Even if you’re short on space, you can transform a quiet corner of your home into a sacred haven with just a few thoughtful touches. For more in-depth guidance, check out our earlier blog post on ‘How to create the perfect Yin Yoga sanctuary at home’.

Few easy tips:

• Quality mat & props: A supportive yoga mat is essential. The Hugger Mugger mats provides a stable, sticky surface for all styles of yoga. Add bolsters and blocks to support restorative poses or help refine alignment.
• Calming ambiance: Soft lighting, gentle music, or the soft glow of a salt lamp can help shift you into a calm, introspective mood.
• Personal touches: Incorporate inspiring artwork, meaningful objects, or a small plant that symbolizes growth. The space should feel like an extension of your intention: peaceful, warm, and welcoming.

4. Balancing effort and ease in your practice

A sustainable yoga routine is not about perfection or extreme effort. Instead, it’s about finding your unique balance—working steadily toward growth while honoring your body’s boundaries. As you move through your New Year yoga practice, listen closely to your body’s feedback.

Practice approach:

• Mix It Up: Why not try a gentle morning flow one day, restorative poses another, and a more invigorating Vinyasa or Ashtanga sequence when you feel ready for something stronger.
• Use Props wisely: Props are not just for beginners. They help you refine alignment, access deeper relaxation, and prevent injury. For example, a blanket folded beneath your hips in seated poses can support better posture.
• Honor rest: Give yourself permission to take Child’s Pose whenever you need a break. Resting isn’t a step back; it’s part of building a practice that you can sustain year round.

5. Integrating meditation into your routine

Meditation, the quieter companion to asana practice, can elevate your routine to new levels of clarity and resilience. Developing a consistent meditation habit helps quiet the mind, ease stress, and refine your ability to stay present. Benefits that ripple through every aspect of life.

Beginner friendly meditation techniques:

• Breath Awareness: Simply observe your breath as it flows in and out. When your mind wanders (and it will), gently guide it back to the breath.
• Body Scan: Mentally travel through your body, noticing and observing sensations and areas of tension. With each exhale, invite release.
• Counting Breaths: Inhale for a count of four, exhale for a count of four, and repeat. This technique helps focus your attention and steady your thoughts.

Start with just a few minutes each day, gradually increasing your meditation time as you grow more comfortable with stillness. Over time, this practice will become a steady anchor you can return to, even in life’s stormier moments.

6. Setting goals that last beyond january

While the New Year often brings a burst of motivation, it’s essential to keep that spark alive. Instead of short lived resolutions, consider setting long term goals that align with your intentions. Perhaps you’d like to improve your flexibility, gradually increase your meditation sessions, or explore new styles of yoga.

Long term tips:

• Track your progress: Note what you practice each week. How long you meditated, which postures felt good, and any shifts in your mood or energy. Tracking helps you identify patterns and celebrate incremental progress.
• Revisit your intentions: Check in with your original intentions every few months. Are they still guiding you? Do you need to refine or add new ones as you evolve?
• Find community: Join a local class, practice virtually with a favorite teacher, or connect with an online yoga community for encouragement and accountability.

7. Bringing your practice into daily life

The true gift of a consistent New Year yoga practice and meditation routine is how it enriches your everyday experience. Over time, the patience you cultivate on the mat, the resilience you nurture through meditation, and the kindness you extend to yourself begin to shape your interactions and decisions off the mat as well.

Off the mat integration:

• Pause and breathe: In moments of stress, close your eyes (or soften your gaze) and take a deep, conscious breath. Let the calm presence you’ve cultivated in meditation guide your response.
• Notice small details: Just as you focus on alignment in yoga, start noticing the subtle beauty around you: a warm cup of tea, sunlight on a windowsill, the quiet hum of a new day.
• Embrace imperfection: Remember that yoga and meditation are not about achieving a flawless pose or an empty mind. They’re about showing up for yourself with compassion, acceptance, and curiosity.

Conclusion: Embrace the journey

A New Year yoga practice and meditation routine is a profound gift you give yourself. With each inhale and exhale, each gentle stretch and mindful pause, you invest in a calmer mind, a stronger body, and a more resilient spirit. Celebrate your progress as it unfolds—not only in January, but throughout the entire year.

Ready to support your journey with the best tools? Explore Hugger Mugger’s selection of mats, bolsters, blocks, and blankets to create a nurturing space that supports your evolving practice. Let this be the year you fully root into your intentions, finding balance, clarity, and joy in every moment—on and off the mat.”

When you get really busy and stressed, what is the first thing you drop from your schedule? I’m guessing that for most of us the answer is self-care. We can’t stop working; making meals; paying our heat bills; and caring for our kids, gardens, homes and animal companions. So the most logical way to clear our schedules is to cancel those things we consider to be optional. Too often those “optional” activities are the very things that might give us an opportunity to relax and rejuvenate. But even when our schedules are tight, we don’t have to give up entirely on ourselves. We can practice mindful self-care throughout our day. We just have to reorient our thinking about self-care.

Drops in a Bucket

You’ve probably heard the expression “a drop in the bucket.” This phrase, of course, means that something is insignificant in the grand scheme of things. But here’s another way of looking at the concept. If you add a drop to a bucket each day, it may take a long time, but eventually, the bucket will fill to the brim.

We can approach mindful self-care in the same way. A few minutes of self-care each day can make a big difference. I’ve practiced yoga and mindfulness since the 1980s. Over the years, I’ve discovered that practicing for even as little as five minutes a day cultivates the habit of practice more effectively than practicing for an hour once or twice a week.

We need consistency in order to form habits. For example, there are lots of things we do every day: brush our teeth, consume our morning coffee or tea, shower, etc. Each of these things takes only a few minutes, but each one of them bears fruit in our lives. Can we add a few minutes of mindful self-care to our daily routine?

Pranayama and Mindful Self-Care

In this post, I’d like to focus on the fourth of yoga’s eight limbs: pranayama (breathing practices). Pranayama sits at the junction between yoga’s more earthly limbs—yama (ethical precepts), niyama (personal practices) and asana (physical postures)—and the more meditative ones—pratyahara (refinement of the senses), dharana (concentration), dhyana (meditation) and Samadhi. As such, the breath serves as a link between the physical and the mental/emotional/spiritual worlds.

Hatha Yoga is the combination of asana and pranayama. And it’s the linking of breath with movement that makes the practice so powerful.

We breathe all day long without having to tell our bodies to do so. But our breath is the one physiological function we can control directly. We can’t directly control our heartbeat, digestion, nervous system responses, etc. But by altering our breathing patterns, we can influence these functions.

Breathing and Stress

I discovered 15 years ago that, like my mother, I had developed high blood pressure at a fairly young age. In the early stages, I wanted to learn what actions I took during the day that influenced it. So I bought a monitor and checked my blood pressure several times a day. I found that if I took my blood pressure and it registered high, I could lower it significantly—by 10 to 20 points—by taking five minutes to breathe slowly, lengthening my exhalations.

This is because of a physiological phenomenon called sinus arrhythmia. When we inhale, our heartbeat speeds up; when we exhale, our heartbeat slows. So we can affect the heart’s rhythm simply by lengthening our exhalations. Breathing this way may not keep us from having to control our blood pressure and heart rate through other means. But it can provide at least a temporary respite from a racing heart and high blood pressure.

How to Practice Pranayama with Mindful Self-Care in Mind

Pranayama is powerful. There are many traditional yogic forms I would not describe in a blog. But the simple practice I’m sharing here should be safe for anyone. Just make sure to practice with ease and patience. Here are a few pointers:

• Take slow, deep breaths, but don’t try to take the deepest breath you’ve ever taken. If you feel stress at the top of your inhalation, you’re probably trying too hard. Keep your inhalations well within your comfort zone.
• Practice in a position where it’s easy to breathe deeply. I’ve found Constructive Rest Position to be the most efficacious pose for deep, relaxed breathing. If you choose to sit, make sure you sit on plenty of support so that your pelvis is tilting forward. This post on how to choose a meditation cushion gives good information on how to find the best sitting position.
• Start slow, with up to 5 breaths. If you feel good after this, add another breath the next day, and so on, up to 5 minutes.

A Bite-Sized Pranayama Practice for Mindful Self-Care

Here are three different methods of breathing that confer different benefits.

1. Lie down on a Yoga Mat in Constructive Rest Position, or sit on a Meditation Cushion, folded Yoga Blankets or a chair.
2. Take a few relaxed breaths to help you settle into your position. Make whatever adjustments—positional shifts or extra props—you feel will help you relax more easily. Then practice one of the following three practices, depending on what you feel your body and mind need right now.
   • Equal Breathing: Take a slow, relaxed inhalation and count the length of it. Then exhale for the same count. For example, if your inhalation takes four counts, give your exhalation the same count. Equal breathing relaxes the central nervous system and improves focus and concentration.
   • Long Exhalation: Take a slow, relaxed inhalation and count the length of it. Then exhale for twice the amount of time. For example, if your inhalation takes four counts, draw your exhalation out to eight counts. This breathing practice calms your nervous system, slows your heart rate and promotes relaxation.
   • Long Inhalation: Take a slow, relaxed inhalation and count the length of it. Then exhale for half the amount of time. So if your inhalation takes four counts, exhale for two counts. This breathing practice can help lift your energy if you’re feeling tired and sluggish.
3. After a few breaths, or about 60 seconds, let go of the practice and let your breathing return to normal. Stay where you are for a minute or so to allow yourself to absorb the practice.

Drops in the Bucket Matter

Look for times during your day when you can take a breathing break. You can take a minute to breathe while you’re sitting at your work desk—really. A minute of respite here and there may not seem like much, but over time, the benefits accrue. A drop or two each day does eventually add up to an overflowing bucket.

Practicing mindful self-care can keep us on track when we just can’t get to a yoga class, the gym, the hiking trail or the massage therapist. At those times it’s helpful to remember that we can call on a resource that’s always available: ourselves.

I was born with hypermobile joints. As a child, I could easily flop down into side splits and lay my torso on the floor. There was no resistance anywhere. So when I started practicing yoga, I thought my hypermobile body was perfect for the practice. The so-called “advanced” poses that required extreme flexibility were no problem.

In most workshops, my hypermobility won accolades from teachers and students. In Anusara workshops in particular, extremely flexible students, including me, actually won applause. There were notable exceptions though. In particular, Donna Farhi and Judith Hanson Lasater encouraged me to back off my bendiness and focus on yoga for hip stability.

As much as I respected these teachers—they’re both core teachers for me—I loved cultivating my natural flexibility. That is, until the bill for all that flexible fun came due in my 50s.

At that point, basic skills began to erode. Walking up stairs carrying 10 pounds or more sometimes caused extreme pain in my hips and sacroiliac (SI) joints. Then I lost the ability to get up off the floor without using my hands. Finally, lying on my side and walking more than three blocks were excruciating.

Then the news came: I needed bilateral hip replacements. My official diagnosis was hip dysplasia (shallow hip sockets). My surgeon said that my hips would have worn out no matter what I did. But I’m pretty sure that I sped the process up by focusing so much on flexibility. Habitually practicing at my end range of motion gradually demolished my cartilage and labrum. There was no going back.

Had I listened to Donna and Judith, I may have been able to stall the inevitable, but I couldn’t have stopped it entirely.  Since then my practice has changed radically. Yoga for hip stability has become a staple.

It’s All in the Bones

Hip opening has probably always been a focus in Western yoga. But in recent years it has become a fetish. Teachers devote classes to hip opening. (I’ve done this!) There are weekend and weeklong workshops designed to help people move toward those coveted fancy hip-opening poses. (I’ve done this too!)

It’s true that maintaining mobility is important. But if you’re already hypermobile, cultivating even more flexibility creates imbalance. Too much flexibility is just as much a state of imbalance is being too stiff.

If you’re not able to rock those fancy poses, it may not even be because of lack of flexibility. More likely, it’s due to your structure. There’s a wide range of variations in hip joint structure across the population. Our hip sockets can be shallow or deep; positioned externally, internally or somewhere in between; faced upward, downward, outward, inward, etc. And then there are variations in the shape of your femur bone that affect how it articulates with the socket.

Without getting too technical, some people’s hip joints are formed in a way that doesn’t allow for easy external rotation, which is what most of those fancy poses require. If your joints are of this type, the neck of your femur bone will bump up against the edge of your hip socket when you try to externally rotate. No matter how flexible your muscles are, your bones will always have the final say.

Yoga for Hip Stability

In recent years, I’ve come to appreciate the need to balance hip flexibility with hip stability. When I practice or when I teach a class that focuses on hips, I always begin with stabilizing poses. Here are a few ideas for a balanced hip practice:

• Standing balance poses: Standing balance poses such as Vrksasana (Tree Pose), Hasta Padangusthasana (Hand-to-Big-Toe Pose) and others engage the muscles that stabilize the hips, especially the outer thigh muscles. Begin your practice with one or more of these poses. Balancing poses also promote concentration, so starting with them is a great way to connect mind and body at the beginning of your practice.
• Utkatasana (Fierce Pose): Utkatasana strengthens the muscles that help stabilize the hip joints. It also helps strengthen the muscles of the pelvic floor and stabilizes the core.
• Warrior poses: Warrior I, Warrior II and Warrior III (aka Dekasana) strengthen pretty much all the muscles of the legs. They’re especially balancing because they combine stability and flexibility. Really, all the standing poses are helpful. I’ve just chosen the Warrior poses specifically because they are likely the most targeted to stability.
• Prone backbends: Prone backbends such as Bhujangasana (Cobra Pose), Sphinx Pose and Salabhasana (Locust Pose) with its many variations, strengthen the low back and glutes. Strengthening these muscles helps stabilize the SI joint. Most SI joint dysfunction is due to hypermobility in the joint, so it’s important to practice stabilizing poses.

Make sure to add some of these poses into your practice, especially when you’re planning on practicing hip flexibility poses as well. Or especially if you have hypermobile hips. Remember that balance is way more important than rocking fancy poses. Practicing yoga for hip stability will make your practice sustainable for the rest of your life.

Everybody wants to be happy. So why do so many of us feel dissatisfied? There’s a variety of reasons that we might feel unhappy or unfulfilled. But in my experience, one of the main culprits is expectation. In Western culture, we get the message from an early age that we should achieve certain material and developmental milestones as we move through our lives. We should have a career by the time we’re ____ years of age. We should marry and have x number of children. We should be able to retire comfortably by the time we’re ____. Perhaps we’ve achieved these milestones and yet, dissatisfaction still simmers. The solution is to practice santosha, the yogic principle of cultivating contentment.

Santosha is the second of yoga’s niyamas, the second limb of yoga, according to Patanjali’s yoga sutras. The niyamas are daily practices that help us create a life of ease. In addition to santosha, the niyamas include saucha (cleanliness), tapas (enthusiasm and commitment), svadhyaya (self-study and study of inspiring texts) and ishvara pranidhana (dedication of your practice to something larger than yourself).

Like the yamas (moral/ethical precepts) the niyamas form the foundation of yoga. In the yoga tradition, aspiring yogis practiced the yamas and niyamas before they ever learned asana and pranayama. Once practicing the yamas and niyamas became integrated, the student could move on to the other limbs from a foundation of the wisdom of the first two limbs.

Letting Go of Expectations

Clinging to our expectations, or to cultural expectations, can make us feel that our lives are inadequate. Of course, the desire for our lives to be different can, in some cases, be a catalyst for positive change. So it’s not wrong to orient ourselves in the direction of specific goals.

The problem comes when we expect the our lives to look a certain way, because when they don’t, we can never be satisfied. Truth is, sometimes our achievements, while they may look different from our original vision, may turn out even better than we’d imagined. But if we’re clinging to our expectations, we often can’t appreciate it.

It’s okay to envision how you want your life to look, as long as you remain open to appreciating how it actually turns out. This can help us cultivate santosha.

Gratitude and Santosha

One of the most powerful ways to cultivate santosha is to practice gratitude. When we remember the blessings in our own lives, it’s much easier to touch into contentment. Even when life is challenging, there are always things to be grateful for—a roof over our heads, clean water, nourishing food, a special friend or family member (human or non-human).

Several years ago, a friend of mine died of cancer. A former biker, hiker and cross-country skier, she was bedridden for the last six months of her life. Still, she could find joy in a shared meal, the garden outside her window, or the music some friends and I played for her in her room. She endured great suffering as well, but gratitude for her cherished friendships provided periodic relief from her challenges.

One of the common ways to cultivate gratitude—and santosha— is to keep a gratitude journal. It’s very simple. Each day, write down five things in your life for which you are grateful. These can be anything—big or small. You don’t have to try to come up with different things every day. But do reflect on each one, for a few moments or longer, and on the feeling of gratitude.

Santosha on the Yoga Mat

If you’re reading this, you probably practice yoga. If that’s true, you can practice gratitude for your own body. We all come into the world with different genetics. Some of us are tall; others are short. Some are lean; others are more round. Some of us have dark skin and hair; others are light. Some are strong; others are flexible. You get the idea. The mere fact that you can practice yoga is a gift, no matter what your poses look like.

Your poses do not have to look like the yoga photos on Instagram. Performance is not the point. The point is how your practice makes you feel. We cultivate santosha when we stop worrying about how our poses look, and tune into how practice enhances our lives.

When you practice, pay attention to how you feel while you’re in a pose. Make adjustments so that you can breathe freely, and so that you can relax into your pose. Remember that the relaxation of effort is the traditional definition of mastery in asana practice.

After you leave each pose, pause for a few breaths to take in the aftereffects. Gift yourself with a 10- to 15-minute Savasana (Relaxation Pose). Take a minute or two after Savasana to sit quietly and enjoy the residue of your practice.

For many years, the local community put together an annual yoga fundraising event. Teachers from many of the various studios and styles team-taught a class to more than 100 students on a Saturday morning. In one of the later years of the fundraiser, organizers assigned me seven minutes to teach inversions and backbends. Mine would be the last active asana segment before Savasana. My first thought was no way, for many reasons that I’ll explain. But my initial objection was that it was not a helpful way to sequence your yoga class for a relaxing Savasana (Relaxation Pose).

The idea of teaching inversions to more than 100 students, most of whom I didn’t know, scared me. I envisioned people toppling all over the packed venue, and bringing down their neighbors along with them. So Headstand (Sirsasana), Forearm Stand (Pinca Mayurasana) or Handstand (Adho Mukha Vrksasana) were all out. That left Shoulderstand (Sarvangasana). There’s no way I’d teach that without at least three yoga blankets to support each person.

Then there was the issue of backbends. I love backbends, and there are quite a few backbends that might be appropriate for a huge class. But they are quite possibly the last class of poses you’d want to teach right before Savasana. Backbends can be incredibly stimulating, even agitating. If you want to sequence your yoga class for a relaxing Savasana, forward bends are a much better choice. I emailed the organizers with my concerns and they welcomed the input and allowed me to switch to forward bends.

Why Sequence Your Yoga Class for Savasana?

Why would you want to sequence your yoga class for Savasana? Simply put, Savasana is yoga’s most important pose. It’s the pose that separates yoga asana from other forms of physical practice. In what other practice are you encouraged to lie down and do nothing after your workout?

Years ago, my mother and my aunt took a yoga class at a senior center. When I asked them what their favorite pose was, both answered “The Sponge.” The Sponge was their name for Savasana. At first I thought the name was rather silly. But as I thought about it, I realized that it’s actually an appropriate descriptor.

In Savasana we integrate—or “soak in”—the benefits of our practice, in the same way a sponge soaks in water. We spend our practice stretching and contracting our soft tissue. Then we lie down in a receptive, supported posture and allow our bodies and minds to settle. When we don’t practice Savasana, our practice can leave us agitated and edgy. Savasana gives us time to be present with the ever-changing landscape of our bodies and minds. We emerge with a quiet energy that can carry us through our day with equanimity.

How to Sequence for Savasana

Of course, there are lots of ways to sequence a yoga class, depending on what type of yoga you’re practicing or teaching. But in my classes, I like to practice with Savasana in mind. This doesn’t mean I teach just Restorative Yoga. In fact, just this morning we practiced core strengthening for the first 30 minutes of class. In one class last week, we spent 45 minutes in standing poses. But in a 90-minute class, I always leave at least the last 15 to 20 minutes of active asana for poses that calm the nervous system.

So if I’m teaching a class that works up to backbends, for example, I want to make sure that I’ve finished the most intensive backbends about 20 minutes before our 15-minute Savasana. After the last backbend, I’ll offer a few gentle supine twists. Then we’ll practice Supta Ardha Padmasana (Supine Half Lotus Pose), so that our spines can stay in a neutral position as we begin to introduce forward bending. From there, we practice a few relaxed, often supported, seated forward bends. These help to stretch the back body, but more importantly, to quiet the nervous system.

Here are a few tips for teaching a class with Savasana in mind. Of course, feel free to explore and improvise:

• Practice heating/energizing poses for the first half of your practice. These include standing poses; inversions such as Headstand, Handstand and Forearm Stand; core strengtheners; and backbends.
• Leave time for cooling/relaxing poses in the last half of your practice. These include seated and supine twists; Shoulderstand (but it’s only relaxing if it’s an easy pose for you; struggle will create agitation); and forward bends.
• Check your intentions. Can you practice asana with a relaxed, curious intention rather than from a place of striving and pushing? Even the most relaxing Restorative Pose will be agitating if you’re worried about your “performance.” Relax. Yoga is a practice, not a performance.

The Karma of Practice

My teacher, Pujari, says that Savasana is when we collect the karma of our practice. In Savasana, we integrate the effects of our practice. When we practice with an aggressive attitude, in the poses we choose and in the way we approach them, our Savasana may well feel agitated. When we practice from a place of ease and curiosity, and when we look toward Savasana when we sequence our practice, we’ll more easily sink into a spacious calm. Explore how you might practice yoga with Savasana in mind.

Yoga for Meditators

Jump Start Your Meditation Practice with a New Book and Discount on a Cushion or Bench!

Sitting meditation may look easy, but in reality sitting still can be very challenging. Even if you only sit for a short period each day, having a quiet, easeful body is essential to quieting your mind. The key to being at ease in your body is understanding the mechanics of sitting and then finding the right support for your individual body.

Yoga for Meditators, a new book by Charlotte Bell, explains the mechanics of the sitting posture, and gives helpful examples of ways to set yourself up so that you take advantage of your unique structure to find the best sitting position for you.

Here’s our proposal:

• 1. Buy a copy of Yoga for Meditators.
• 2. Read the first section on “Finding a Seat” to decide which type of cushion or bench is best for you.
• 3. Use the coupon included with your book to buy a Zafu, Zabuton, Zen, V-Shaped Cushion or Meditation Bench at a 15 percent discount!

This promotion goes from July 16 to July 23! (The coupon will be good through 6/30/13)