A Quick Start to Ayurvedic Self-Care When You’re Short on Time
Curious about Ayurveda but short on time? Get a quick start to Ayurvedic self-care with simple practices you can try in 1, 5 or 15 minutes.
“I don’t have time to learn something new.”
Maybe you’ve said this before when you’ve come across Ayurveda, yoga or meditation. Sounds interesting. You’d like to learn more. But your life is already full.
There’s work, family, errands, appointments, exercise, sleep — and approximately 47 things on your mental to-do list at any given moment. So the thought of adding one more thing can be enough to make you close the book, save the post for later or tell yourself you’ll get to it someday.
This is one of the reasons I teach Ayurvedic self-care in a slightly different way. You don’t have to learn everything about Ayurveda or completely change your life to begin exploring it. You can start with the time you actually have.
The Magazine That Started It All
My love of wellness began with my aunt’s old copies of Prevention magazine. When I was growing up, she'd pass them along to me, so I was always a few months behind.
I didn’t mind though. I still read every word — even the credits page and the letter from the editor.
I loved the feeling of discovering something I hadn’t known before and reading stories about people making inspiring transformations.
I didn’t know it at the time, but those magazines sparked my love of reading and writing about wellness and helped set me on the path to becoming a yoga teacher, Ayurvedic yoga specialist and author.
A Quick Start to Learning Ayurvedic Self-Care
Like yoga, Ayurveda is an ocean of knowledge and it would truly take a lifetime to learn it all. There are doshas, daily routines, seasonal practices, ideas about sleep, movement and more.
It’s easy to look at all of it and think, Where would I even begin?
But I’d start somewhere much simpler: with yourself.
Ayurveda offers a way of paying attention to the relationship between your daily habits and how you feel. You might notice that your energy changes at a certain point in the afternoon.
You might realize that eating a late dinner affects your sleep. You might notice that you feel different when your morning begins quietly instead of in a rush.
You don’t have to know exactly what every observation means. You don’t have to immediately change your entire routine.
First, notice.
That’s a surprisingly important place to begin. And you can do it in very little time.
What Ayurvedic Self-Care Can Look Like When You’re Short on Time
Instead of thinking about Ayurvedic self-care as another routine you need to squeeze into your day, try thinking about it in terms of the time you actually have.
If You Have 1 Minute
Before reaching for your phone in the morning, pause.
Notice how you feel as you wake up. Are you rested? Still tired? Already thinking about everything you need to accomplish today?
Take a few easy breaths and notice whether your breathing feels shallow or deep, quick or relaxed. You don’t have to fix anything. You’re simply checking in before the day begins making demands of you.
You can do the same thing before a meal. Put down whatever you’re holding for a moment and notice whether you’re feeling distracted, rushed or already thinking about what comes next.
One minute can give you useful information.
If You Have 5 Minutes
Use your senses. Step outside and notice the temperature, the air and the sounds around you. If you normally drink coffee or tea in the morning while answering email or scrolling through your phone, try sitting down and drinking it without doing anything else.
Notice the warmth of the cup, the smell and the taste. Let yourself finish one thing before moving on to the next.
You could also spend 5 minutes practicing a few yoga poses like side stretches or forward folds. The goal isn’t to squeeze a full-body yoga class into 5 minutes. It’s simply to give your body and mind a different experience from the one you were having before.
If You Have 10 to 15 Minutes
This gives you enough time to experiment with one small piece of dinacharya, the Ayurvedic idea of creating a daily routine.
You don’t need an elaborate routine. Choose one part of your day where a little more consistency might make a difference for you.
Perhaps you get up at roughly the same time every day and give yourself a few minutes before looking at your phone. Maybe you make breakfast before rushing out the door. Maybe you create a transition between work and home so you’re not carrying the entire workday into your evening.
Ten or 15 minutes is also enough time for a short yoga practice.
Rather than automatically doing the same practice every day, pause first and ask yourself what you need today. What time is it? How is your energy? Answers to these questions can help you decide what to do.
In Ayurveda, opposites balance, so if you’re tired in the morning, an energizing practice can help bring you back into balance. If you’re wired at night, grounding and nourishing practices can help you move toward a state of calm.
This is where Ayurveda and yoga can work beautifully together. Together, they offer a way to listen to your body and respond to what it needs.
If You Have No Extra Time at All
Don’t add anything extra. Use something you’re already doing as your opportunity to pay attention.
Eat one meal without scrolling. Notice how quickly you eat and whether you actually taste your food.
Take your usual walk and notice how you feel before and after.
When you’re getting ready for bed, notice whether your body feels tired if your mind is still going.
If you already practice yoga, take a moment before you begin and ask yourself, What would feel supportive right now?
You haven’t added another task to your day. You’ve changed the way you’re experiencing something that was already there. And that distinction matters.
A Simple Place to Start
If you’d like a little more guidance, I created The Ayurvedic Self-Care Starter Checklist, with 10 simple rituals you can explore from morning to evening.
You don’t have to do all 10. Choose the ones that fit your life right now and see what you notice.
What I Wish More People Knew About Ayurveda
I sometimes think about those Prevention magazines when I teach Ayurvedic self-care and yoga.
They remind me that meaningful interests don’t always arrive with a grand plan. Sometimes something simply catches your attention and stays with you.
That was true for me. I was fascinated by those magazines long before I understood where that interest would lead. They introduced me to ideas about wellness and movement that became part of my life. Eventually, that interest led me to yoga, then to Ayurveda and to teaching and writing about both.
I didn’t need to know all of that when I was sitting on my couch reading the magazines front to cover.
I just needed to be interested enough to keep reading.
You don’t have to know where your interest in Ayurvedic self-care will lead, either.
Maybe you’re interested because you’ve been feeling tired. Maybe you’re looking for a different way to approach your yoga practice. Maybe you keep hearing about Ayurveda and want to understand what it actually has to offer to help you with consistency.
Start there.
You might notice something about your energy. You might change the way you approach your morning. You might discover that a different kind of yoga practice feels better on a particular day or at a specific time of day.
And then you can decide what to explore next.
Ayurveda Doesn’t Have to Become Another Thing To Do
This is probably the biggest thing I want you to take away.
You don’t need a perfect morning routine. You don’t need a ton of products, a new skin care routine or to memorize the Ayurvedic clock.
You can begin by paying attention to something that is already part of your life.
One breath.
One transition between parts of your day.
One yoga practice that you approach a little differently.
That’s enough to begin.
And if you find yourself wanting to understand why these practices work together, how Ayurveda can inform your yoga practice or how to build a more personalized approach to Ayurvedic self-care, there’s more to discover.
My 4-week program, The Ayurvedic Self-Care Sequence, offers a guided way to bring these practices together and develop an approach to self-care that feels personal and sustainable.
Join the waitlist to be the first to know when enrollment opens next.
For now, you can simply start with the time you have.
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