It’s 6am and your alarm has just gone off. Groggy and exhausted, you reach over and hit the snooze button. You fall back asleep for ten or fifteen minutes only to be awakened once more by the insistent beeping of the alarm. You reach over and hit the snooze button again. Eventually you reach the point where you absolutely must get out of bed. You drag yourself into the shower, hurry to get dressed for work and run out the door, perhaps stopping in the kitchen on your way out of the house to grab breakfast or your morning coffee. You use your commute time to either listen to the radio or check your emails/Facebook/Twitter on your smartphone and then you’re at the office and your entire morning is a blur.

But what if it didn’t have to be this way?

What if you begin the day with a yoga practice?

I know what you’re thinking: A morning yoga practice? I don’t have time to get to a class! Actually, you don’t have to. Ten minutes is all it takes to transform your morning from I-wish-I-was-still-in-bed to I’m-ready-for-the-day.

For starters, let’s rewind to the night before. Before going to bed, set a conscious intention to get out of bed when your alarm first goes off – this means no rolling over, and no groaning. In the morning, begin slowly:

• Turn the alarm off and take a few deep breaths.
• Rub your palms together to generate some heat and cup your hands over your eyes. Open your eyes slowly, adjusting to the morning light.
• Stretch; bring your arms overhead, point your toes and yawn.
• Hug your knees to your chest and rock gently side to side before rolling over and getting out of bed.

You don’t need to have a dedicated room for your yoga practice. In fact, you can keep your mat right beside your bed and roll it out every morning, to make it even easier to begin your practice. And your practice doesn’t have to be anything formal and structured – you can simply take a few minutes to stretch and do whatever feels right in the moment.

• Inhale, sweep the arms overhead, and exhale to come into a forward fold.
• Do this slowly a few times, and don’t rush.
• Continue with 5-10 rounds of sun salutations. (Pick a variation that works for you.)
• Move into the poses slowly to start and let your breath come naturally. Your body is extra sensitive at this time of day, so don’t push or force it to do anything it doesn’t want to do.
• When you’re finished, sit in easy pose, close your eyes and take a minute to center yourself.

Give yourself a pat on the back for starting the day off with some mindful movements and for resisting the call of the snooze button. It’s been just 10 minutes and you’re ready to get on with the rest of your morning. Try this for a week, and notice the difference it makes. Not only will you feel more refreshed and awake when you’re done, but you’ll feel a sense of accomplishment knowing that you did something other than avoiding the start of another day.

If you’ve been to a yoga class, chances are you’ve been told to breathe more than just a few times. In yoga, breath is a very important part of the practice. It is referred to as prana, or life force energy.

While in a yoga class, the focus is generally on moving the body in time with the breath. Taking big, full inhales and focusing on complete exhales, this practice benefits us by bringing fresh oxygen to all the tissues in our body, as well as helping to expel toxins.

This constant focus on the breath has another benefit: it assists us in maintaining a sense of concentration, relaxation, and one-pointedness of mind. With time, we get better and better at maintaining this focus for the duration of our yoga practice. But what happens when we leave the yoga room and return to the rest of our day? Most of us tend to forget about the breath altogether, not giving it a second thought until the next time we step onto our mats. How we breathe throughout the day, however, is just as important and deserving of our attention as how we breathe during yoga class. It can bring instant relief from stress, help to invigorate us when we are feeling tired, or center us when we feel our emotions spinning out of control. So the next time you walk out of your yoga class, take your breath with you and watch what happens.

Simple practices to try throughout the day:

1. When you wake up in the morning, before you get out of bed, bring your attention to your belly. Take three full, deep breaths. Relax into the sensation.
2. While driving, use each red light as an opportunity to turn the radio down and take a few conscious breaths.
3. If you work at a desk job, set an Outlook reminder to go off every hour. When it does, stop what you are doing and take a deep breath (or two, or three.) Alternately, you can do this every time your telephone rings, or every time a new email pops up.
4. Practice pausing for three breaths when you feel stress build up in your body. It will help send more oxygen to your brain and release tension.
5. Before going to bed at night, finish the day with a few conscious breaths. Set aside any thoughts about your day, use the breath to release tension, and enjoy the feeling of not having anything more to do.