These are the five yoga poses you should do every day, according to an expert instructor

Yoga is celebrated for its mind-body benefits, and practicing daily can improve flexibility, strength, balance and mental clarity. However, if you’re new to yoga, it can be hard to know where to start.

That’s where yoga teacher Maria Therese comes in. She has created a five-move routine to help you build strength and flexibility. These are moves she recommends for both beginners and advanced yogis, which can be done as a standalone practice or as a warm-up for more advanced yoga poses. Therese demonstrates each move in her video below.

How to do Maria Therese’s five yoga poses

These are the five moves that Therese recommends and their main benefits:

• Cat-cow: Promotes spinal mobility.
• Walking downward dog: Stretches the muscles along your posterior chain, running down the back of your body, and engages muscles in your arms and shoulders.
• Warrior two: Opens the hips, shoulders and chest, which feels very satisfying if you spend most of the day hunched over a desk.
• Triangle pose: Challenges your balance, opens up the chest and provides a rotational stretch through the spine.
• Plank pose: A great move for building core strength.

Benefits of daily yoga

Research indicates that a daily yoga practice may lower blood pressure and cholesterol levels, reducing the risk of heart disease. Yoga can also improve sleep quality, reduce stress and enhance mental focus and wellbeing.

Yoga has long been valued for maintaining and boosting mobility and flexibility, making it an ideal form of movement for anyone, especially if you’re at a life stage when flexibility naturally declines. Committing to a daily practice can also improve posture and balance.

Incorporating yoga into your daily routine has even been linked to longevity. Research published in Brain Plasticity reveals how the role of yoga asana (postures), breathwork and meditative practices may “mitigate age-related and neurodegenerative declines”, positively impacting brain health and cognitive function.

Want more routines like this one? Try working your way through these yoga stretches for beginners or learn how to do a sun salutation.