Choosing Online Yoga Instruction to Reduce Stress

Online yoga instruction is a great way to reduce stress in the convenience of your own home.

  • Busy? Tired? Strapped for cash?
  • Maybe your city doesn’t have a yoga studio?

Maybe you don’t like the crowded, body-to-body yoga classes at the studio.

Or maybe you don’t want to be seen in yoga tights.

Yoga is a great remedy for stress. It relaxes your muscles and increases circulation. It calms the breath and restores your heart rhythm online yoga to a balanced state. It focuses and calms your mind. It can help clear the many tangled thoughts that crush us when we’re stressed.

But sometimes getting to a yoga class can be so difficult that it increases the stress you’re trying to reduce.

Online yoga instruction is a great alternative to yoga in a studio. But how do you choose an online yoga program? What should you look for?

When you are picking the online yoga instruction which is right for you, ask these questions:

  • Who are the teachers who teach and what is their experience level?
  • Does the yoga instruction include just yoga or does it have yoga, pranayama (breathing) and meditation?
  • Are there variations to the yoga routines for different ability levels and physical limitations? What happens when your ability grows, can the program grow with you? What about injuries? Will the program suggest variations to prevent injuries and to accommodate injuries you may have?
  • What format does the online yoga instruction come in? If you only get videos, you must be near your computer to work out. MP3’s give you the flexibility of practicing anywhere. Is this important to you.
  • Is there a support community (a forum, or blog)? Where do you go with questions?

My two favorite programs score highly for all of these questions. They have fabulous, experienced teachers with great reputations in the yoga world. They provide not only yoga instruction, but also pranayama (breathing) and meditation. The yoga instruction is available in beginning, intermediate and advanced classes and there are many adaptations for lots of physical complaints. Both programs offer video and MP3 formats and both have a forum.

How is the Program Structured?

The basic difference between the two best online yoga programs is how the program is structured. And this difference in structure is the main reason to choose one online yoga program over the other.

My first favorite online yoga site offers a progressive, step-by-step program which builds from one week to the next, so that you learn yoga in a sequenced, organized fashion. It’s like taking a formal yoga course. One class leads to the next.

My other favorite online yoga instruction is more like a “yoga buffet”, a large library of yoga options that allows you to pick your yoga sequence depending on your mood and your needs for the day. It has dozens and dozens of different routines, short and long, easy and difficult, in many yoga styles, and for many different physical conditions. It allows you to create your own program to meet your own criteria. If I want to reduce stress, I can pick out the routines that restore the body.

Each program offers different benefits and will suit different people at different times. Maybe you would want to start with a progressive program to learn yoga and establish your personal practice, and then switch to the yoga buffet for variation and to delve more deeply into the areas of yoga that interest you.

If you want to use schwangeren yoga online yoga as one of your stress reduction tools, online yoga is a good way to practice yoga. You will want to find excellent online yoga instruction, taught by good, experienced teachers in order to prevent injury and to reap the benefits of yoga. Think about how you want to use your yoga instruction to pick the best online yoga instruction for you.