Start yoga at home, even if you cannot touch your toes

Yes, and that is the ordinary starting point rather than the exception. Flexibility is what yoga produces over months, not what it asks for on day one. Every beginner pose has a shorter version: bend your knees in a forward fold, keep your heels off the floor in Downward Dog, put a block under your hand instead of reaching for the ground. What matters is that the shape of the pose is right for your body today, not how far down you get. If you can breathe steadily and hold a position for five slow breaths, you are doing the pose correctly, whatever the photograph in the app looks like.

Three times a week for twenty minutes will change more than one ninety-minute class on a Sunday. Beginners underestimate how much of the early progress is nervous-system learning: your body has to recognise a shape before it can hold it comfortably, and that recognition comes from repetition rather than duration. A realistic first month looks like ten to twenty minutes on most days, one longer session if you enjoy it, and a rest day whenever you are sore in a muscle rather than a joint. Daily practice is fine too — yoga at beginner intensity is not something you need to recover from the way you would from lifting.

Hatha is the safest default: slow, pose by pose, with time to hear the instruction and adjust before moving on. Vinyasa flows continuously and is more fun once you know the shapes, but as a first class it usually means copying the person next to you and learning bad habits. Yin holds passive poses for three to five minutes and suits stiff bodies and stressed minds, though it teaches you almost nothing about alignment. Restorative is entirely supported by props and is excellent for sleep and recovery. Ashtanga and hot yoga are demanding sequences with a fixed order — both are perfectly learnable later, and both are a rough introduction.

A mat is worth buying and almost everything else can wait or be improvised. The mat matters because grip is a safety issue: hands sliding forward in Downward Dog is how beginners strain wrists and shoulders. Blocks are the second purchase and the one that changes the most poses, but two thick books do the same job for a month. A strap can be a belt or a towel. Skip the wheel, the special clothing and the app subscription until you have practised for eight weeks and know what you actually reach for.

Sleep and stress usually respond within one to two weeks — that is the breathing and the nervous system, and it arrives before anything visible does. Mobility changes take about four to six weeks of regular practice: you notice it as reaching further in a forward fold or standing up from a chair more easily rather than as a dramatic new pose. Strength and balance take eight to twelve weeks. If nothing at all has shifted after three consistent months, the practice is probably too gentle, too short or too irregular — and that is a scheduling problem more often than a technique one.

Often it helps, and a few poses reliably make things worse. Gentle mobility, cat-cow, supported bridge and a supine twist tend to relieve the common desk-related ache. Deep forward folds with straight legs, full wheel and aggressive twists can aggravate a disc problem, and no online guide can tell which category your back falls into. The rule is simple: pain that is dull, spreads across the muscle and eases as you move is usually safe to work with; pain that is sharp, shoots down a leg, or comes with numbness or tingling means stop and see a doctor or physiotherapist before your next session.