How Often Should You Do Yoga?

If you’re looking to increase your health and fitness and you’re planning your exercise routine, you might be wondering how often should you do yoga? Of course, it depends a bit on your level of fitness and how much other exercise you are doing during a week. Beginners may want to do less than experienced yoga practitioners.

The answer depends very much on the person and what their goals are, but a reasonably fit and healthy person can do yoga three to five times per week. Even if you are very fit, it’s a good idea to take a day to rest every so often; this gives your muscles a chance to recover, reduces the possibility of injury, and helps you to stay motivated.

Why Do I Need Rest Days?

Rest days are important in any form of exercise and sport, even a very relaxing and non-strenuous exercise like yoga. This is particularly true for beginners; if you are just getting into yoga, you might find that although it involves fairly gentle movements, it can put a surprising amount of strain on your body.

You may think that yoga has a very low chance of injury, and it’s certainly lower than for some sports. However, it does carry a risk of repetitive strain injury, especially if you aren’t used to exercising. Your muscles will likely struggle with the movements at first, and you may find yourself unexpectedly sore.

In order to let yourself recover, it’s important to build rest days into your schedule. You don’t have to sit absolutely still and become a couch potato on a rest day, but you should be aiming to minimize your exercise. A little gentle stretching is fine, but don’t do a full yoga routine with difficult poses.

Rest days help your muscles to heal. When you strain a muscle, you are creating tiny tears in it, and that’s why you often feel stiff and achy after a day of exercise. A bit of rest with very gentle exercise gives the muscle time to mend those tears, and it will be stronger as a result.

Rest days can also benefit your mental health. Yoga should be a pleasure, not a source of stress – and feeling like you have to fit it in every single day of the year is bound to be a little stressful.

Life sometimes gets in the way, so make sure you are content to take a few days off in a week. Your rest days may vary, but build some into your schedule.

Should I Aim For Consistency?

Consistency is good, so commit to practicing yoga a certain number of times per week. You will know better than anyone else what you can realistically achieve given your schedule. Are you free to do it five times a week, or would three be more realistic?

Set a certain number of weeks to meet that goal for, and then review the goal. If after two months, you feel you want to do more yoga, increase it. If, on the other hand, the sessions are adding stress to your life, take a step back and slow down. You can always increase again when things are calmer.

Consistency is good because it will help you form a habit, and this will make the exercise a part of your life in the long term. Building yoga into your schedule and routine is the perfect way to ensure that it becomes part of your life – and this is the best way to make sure you keep doing it.

What Happens If I Don’t Do Enough Yoga?

This might occur to you if you ask the question how often should you do yoga? What are the downsides of not making time for enough practice?

The only real downside is that you may be at slightly greater risk of injury if you practice infrequently. Your muscles and joints won’t be used to the stretching, and you have a somewhat higher – although still low – chance of hurting yourself. It is better to do yoga consistently than in short, intense bursts.

Otherwise, the only other disadvantage of rare practice is that you will not enjoy as much benefit. Yoga is often considered a state of mind as well as an exercise, and you will struggle to advance both mentally and physically if you rarely practice. Your improvement will be much slower than if you put more time in.

How Soon Will I Start Feeling Good From Yoga Practice?

You should start to feel good as a result of your yoga practice pretty much straight away – although you may also suffer from soreness, especially if you go for a fairly strenuous first session. Often, yoga is a relaxing activity, and you should start to enjoy this relaxation almost from the first session.

It may take a little longer for some of the physical benefits to show, although this depends on the person. You will probably need to build up your muscles over a few weeks, depending on how often you practice, but you may find that you feel good even if you’re sore. The endorphins and satisfaction of exercise are often enough to overcome physical discomfort.

If you continue to practice yoga over the years, you will probably notice that you get more and more benefit from it. You will feel calmer and more focused when things are difficult, and certainly enjoy more flexibility and core strength as a result.

However, you don’t have to wait years to start seeing results – these should happen almost immediately.

Conclusion

So, how often should you do yoga? It depends on your current fitness levels, your goals, your other commitments, and how much you enjoy it. For most people, about three or four times a week should help you see many of the benefits without being overwhelming.

However, if that’s not possible for you or you’re just getting started, aim for two to three times a week. Yoga should be a source of relaxation and enjoyment, so don’t turn it into a source of stress by over-committing and failing to meet your goals.

If yoga is a big part of your life you will know how important a good quality yoga mat is. Take a look at our top ten yoga mats to see how you could take your yoga practice to the next level with a top quality mat.