How to Create a Yoga Studio at Home

Nov 19, 2020

15 minutes

As many people swap their weekly yoga classes at the local studio for home practices, it can be quite a bland change moving from practicing with others in a space specifically designed for yoga to practicing at home.

Yoga studios are often designed with the purpose of being conducive to flow. This usually features minimal decor with straight, modern lines, and a lot of open space that is often accented by a lot of natural light.

If you want to move your practice to a strictly at-home practice, all of these elements can be a taller order to incorporate at home, especially since many of us live in a variety of different situations.

With this guide, I'll show you how to take an unused (or used!) space in your home or apartment and transform it into a functioning and fun yoga space.

Let's get started!

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When evaluating your home in search of a good space for your practice, it's important to keep a few things in mind. I've moved quite a bit in the past few years, moving to a new apartment every year, and I've had to create a new yoga space each year. Here are a few tips that I've learned:

Space - The average size of a yoga mat runs around 68" long and 24" wide. Because yoga poses and sequences are rarely contained to the mat itself, you're going to want a lot of space around your mat itself.
Lighting - I love to practice yoga in natural light. It's invigorating and energizing and natural light is a great way to use smaller spaces as it opens up even the tiniest of corners.
Open windows - While not everyone enjoys practicing yoga outside, a good happy medium between a practice indoor and outdoors is by practicing near an open window.

The most important part of making a yoga sanctuary is space. Just make sure you have enough space to really move and make sure you have plenty of open area around your mat.

Now that you have your space picked out, you can move on to transforming that space! If you're unsure of where to start when it comes to organizing a space, here's a simple three-step breakdown for how I like to tackle organizing a space.

Decluttering - The first thing I like to do when I'm repurposing a space is decluttering. It helps me to get a feel of the space and I like starting from scratch. Take some time to go through and sort through anything that inhabits the space. Donate or give away everything you don't regularly use. This will help ensure you're not overcrowding your practice space.
Move everything - With only the essential things remaining, take some time to pull everything away from the space so you can start with a fresh space. This also makes the third step much easier.
Clean - There's no point in setting up a dirty area to practice yoga in. Yoga is all about maintaining concentration and when you practice in a dirty space, you'll be more likely to notice how dirty your space is when you're trying to concentrate.

Don't worry, the next steps are more fun!

Alright, you've decluttered and you're cleaned and now it's time to make sure you have enough storage for any yoga accessories you might have!

Whether you're a minimalist yogi who uses only the thinnest of yoga mats or a maximalist with an assortment of yoga items, ensuring everything has a home will help keep your area organized so you can focus on what really matters: practicing yoga.

This step is completely up to you, but I like to further organize my shelves with little baskets for my straps, blankets, yoga pillows and the like. I may not use these items in every practice, but everything has a place!

Check out our guide on how to choose the perfect yoga mat to find the best mat for your practice.

Now, you're ready to outfit your space with the yoga studio essentials. Aside from the obvious things like yoga mats (without them, what has this all been about?) straps, towels, bolsters, blocks here are a few things to get the ball rolling for you.

A nice mirror - Yoga can be a highly technical practice and it's sometimes helpful to see yourself in different poses, especially if you want to make sure you're practicing properly!
Music - Listening to music is a great way to encourage your focus and, if you haven't got one already, creating a yoga studio for yourself is a great opportunity for you to invest in a speaker system that will fill your intended space.
Candles or incense - Some people associate certain scents with focus and concentration. If this is the case with you, go ahead and stock up on your favorite scents!

I've rounded up my top 5 yoga accessories here to fully enhance your practice.

You've decluttered, you've cleaned, you've organized, and you've stocked up on the essentials, but what's next? The most fun part of setting up any new space - decorating!

This step is completely up to you - there are no wrong answers!

I like to encourage minimal and clean decor in my yoga space. This helps to minimize any potential distraction and it makes the space itself look clean.

Invest in some prints and paintings that you like and hang them on the wall. If you're working on standing poses, it helps to focus on a single point, and I find that having something hung on the wall directly in front of me gives me something specific to focus on.

Plants are a great way to add some natural elements to your space. This is especially handy if you like to practice outside and you live in an urban area, where outdoor practice is limited.

Enjoy your new at-home yoga studio. Happy practicing!