In her recent interview with Hanne Blank Amber at Body Positive Yoga joined a 100 days challenge, saying, “I’ll be committing to move my body every day for at least 30 minutes, whether that’s walking, swimming, dancing, lifting weights, or practicing yoga.”
As I was reading, my thoughts on that went like this — in order:
- That’s awesome!
- I don’t think I could do 30 minutes every day for 100 days.
- I mean, sure, most days — but every day?
- Well, what do I do when I can’t run or practice for a full 30 minutes that day?
- Wait, there have been days like that. What have I already done?
So I thought it might be fun to start an intermittent series of “five minute” yoga options. While I’m not going to say that each one can be done in exactly five minutes, they will be options for folks who have very limited yoga time.
Of course, now that I’ve prefaced the whole thing as coming from ideas about movement, the first five minute option I’d like to include has little to do with whole body movement — though there is some movement involved in respiration.
Because, pressed for time, one of the first “yoga” things I will do is some alternate nostril breathing. While allergies and sinus problems make this challenging and often noisy, I find the breath practice itself immensely useful for calming, focusing, and just feeling like I’ve taken some “me time.”
[Jennifer Kostel instructing for Expert Village. Video via YouTube.]
I’m not claiming alternate nostril breathing is magic — if it were, I’d be able to do it with far fewer boogers — but I do find it at least somewhat useful for being with chronic pain as well as for trying to be here through a PTSD trigger. Plus, if I hold my fingers just right, it looks like I’m picking my nose — which of course I think is hilarious. 
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