Do yoga every day for 31 days: What sounds exhausting to some people was incredibly good for me in 2023 and 2024. It wasn’t always easy for me to try it myself, but I learned a lot – and will therefore repeat the challenge in 2025.
On January 1, 2024 it was said to me: I want to get on the yoga mat every day for 31 days and thereby consciously start the new year and take a little time just for myself. I would like to repeat the Yoga Challenge 2025 for the fourth time.
Below I report on how I felt after the challenge, what kept me going – and what I would like to change this year.
Why a yoga challenge?
The most common New Year’s resolutions? Every year the following are mentioned: do more exercise or sport and take more time for yourself. Since I want to consciously give both things (more) time in my everyday life, I decided to do a special self-experiment for the first time at the beginning of January 2023. I signed up for the 31-Day Yoga Challenge that yoga teacher, YouTuber, and blogger Mady Morrison has been offering for seven years running. There she puts together a training plan that includes a different yoga unit every day.
Yoga means time for myself that I consciously perceive and a physical activity that brings me down and relaxes me, but at the same time challenges me physically. I find it particularly practical that I can do yoga at any time and from home – without any preparation time or a lot of equipment.
I have been practicing yoga more or less regularly for several years. For some time I also attended a weekly course, which started again in October. But doing yoga every day is a little challenge for me. The corona pandemic with a lot of time at home played a big part in me implementing the project. That’s why I thought 2023 was time to try again under “normal” conditions.
Yoga every day – doesn’t it get monotonous?
My plan was as follows: On Wednesdays I attended the yoga class on site as usual, on the other days of the week I did the units from Mady Morrison’s “Inner Awakening” yoga challenge at home.
The nice thing about the challenge: Every day there is a new sequence with a different focus on the program. Sometimes you mainly strengthen the core of your body, sometimes the focus is on hip or heart openers. From 15-minute morning yoga to a 45-minute Yin yoga session (here you hold the positions for several minutes), you complete a varied full-body workout.
My yoga diary: This is what I learned from self-experimentation in 31 days
Day 1-11: I started on January 1, 2023 full of motivation. This continued unabated for eleven days. I usually took time for yoga straight after work, once I also used my lunch break, and other times I started the day with a short yoga session. According to the challenge plan, slightly longer sequences of around 45 minutes are planned for the weekend, which I was able to plan well.
Day 12-14: The first challenge – I traveled to Rome by night train. When I left, I wasn’t sure whether or how I would do my yoga sessions there. But on two out of three days I did yoga in the hotel room and found that it worked pretty well. However, I had consciously saved shorter sessions for the vacation days and completed the longer sessions at home beforehand or postponed them until after the trip to Rome. I took the one “missed day” when I didn’t do yoga in Rome home with me as a souvenir.
After two weeks of yoga, a routine sets in
Day 15-25: After two weeks of yoga, a certain routine was established; My printed training plan on my desk no longer had to remind me that I “had” to do yoga today. The yoga session developed into an integral and beautiful part of my day.
Day 25-31: Admittedly, the challenge didn’t go completely smoothly. I didn’t find the time for yoga every day. For example, when I didn’t go home after the office, but went to dinner and then to the cinema. When I got home, I went straight to bed and saved myself the “detour” via the yoga mat.
How did I deal with the missed units? Sometimes I caught up on these the following day or at the weekend and was guided through two yoga sessions every day, for example in the morning and after work. If that wasn’t possible, I simply added the missing days to the 31-day challenge. That’s why my yoga challenge didn’t last 31, but 34 days.
Self-attempt yoga challenge: This is what you should keep in mind
One of my most important findings from the 31-day yoga challenge: You shouldn’t let a missed yoga session stop you from completing your overall task. Finally, you can repeat the exercise or simply extend the challenge to include the days without yoga.
How do you find the time and motivation for yoga every day? I can say for myself: I can take the time every day – if I want. On days when I worked from home, I liked to do the yoga sessions directly after work or during my lunch break. Both helped very well with switching off. I rarely had motivation problems. If I did, thinking about the satisfied feeling after a workout helped me get started.
I have a tip for everyone who, like me, likes to proceed in a structured manner: print out the yoga plan (Mady Morrison provides a calendar with the daily sessions for download for the 31-day challenge) or save it digitally and check off each completed session. This way you can see the progress every day and have a small sense of achievement. At the same time, you notice how quickly the 31 days go by – that can be really motivating. If you don’t follow a fixed course schedule, you can still highlight the days on which you practiced yoga in the calendar.
This is what the yoga challenge did for me
Yoga helps me switch off and even relieved my headaches on two days. I also noticed a small physical difference: I noticed that I was more flexible – and that for some yoga figures it still depends on the form of the day. Sometimes it was quite easy for me to balance, sometimes I swayed back and forth on one leg. The strength in the arms is not always the same. But overall, after just a month, you notice that you have more strength in your arms and that downward dog can really be a relaxation position.
Conclusion: Yoga enriches the day
But I have now also understood that yoga is incredibly multifaceted and there is no one style of yoga. For example, I found out during the challenge that slow Yin yoga wasn’t my preference, but it can be just right on certain days (for example when I went jogging and used it to stretch my muscles).
Above all, the yoga challenge showed me that I can manage (almost) every day to take a small time slot just for myself and fill it the way I want. The exercises are a nice opportunity for me, but sometimes I prefer a good book or a walk in the fresh air.
For me, the yoga challenge is now an important part of a conscious start to the new year. I’m already motivated for 2025 and am looking forward to the 31-day yoga challenge – for the fourth time. I hope that even after long days at work, I like to stand on the yoga mat and breathe deeply. The nice thing: I have always practiced yoga several times a week, even in February, and thus consciously took me time.
If you are interested in yoga, also read:
- Yoga for beginners – these tips will make it easier for you to get started
- Yoga accessories: This is what you need for training
- 11 sustainable yoga brands – from yoga clothing to mats
- Yoga in bed: The 6 best exercises for your morning or evening routine
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