Do You Think You Don’t Have Time for Yoga?

I work with many clients who think they don’t have time for yoga. Part of that may be a preconceived idea that a yoga practice must be a minimum of 60 minutes, since that’s the minimum most classes are. But there may be another factor at play. I recently listened to, and enjoyed, this episode from the Hidden Brain podcast. If you scroll ahead to around the 20 minute mark, (cuz I KNOW you don’t have time for podcasts,) you’ll hear a story about time tracking. In this time tracking experiment, people were instructed to rate their daily activities on a scale of essential to non-essential and joyful to non-joyful. The woman they interview believed she had no time in her schedule to add anything else, certainly nothing enjoyable. She worked full time and was a full time student. She longed to have more dinners out with her sister, but just couldn’t fit it in to her busy life. Then she spends a week tracking her time and she is surprised, (horrified?), to find that she spends about 12 hours a week on social media, something she considered non-essential and scored as low for joy. Imagine what she could do with those extra 12 hours a week!

So, if you are telling yourself you don’t have time for yoga, I invite you to do a bit of time tracking of your own. Be aware of what you are spending your time on, if it’s essential, and if it bring you joy. Of course everything we do can’t be essential AND joyful, but you might be surprised to find out you are spending more time than expected on activities that are non-essential AND non-joyful. And that might free up an extra 10-20 minutes a day for a guided meditation practice or stretching. Or some other activity that brings you joy that you thought you didn’t have time for!