20-Minute Yoga for Challenging Times

On March 31, 2026, Rodrigo Souza published a guide detailing a 20-minute chair yoga practice designed to support individuals navigating challenging times. The practice is positioned as a tool for those feeling overwhelmed by a social and political climate that can often feel divisive.

The guide emphasizes that while many external situations are beyond individual control, yoga can help practitioners accept these realities and focus instead on their own internal response.

By utilizing mindful movement and breathwork, the practice aims to return the individual to a place of inner safety. This process is intended to create a rejuvenating and nurturing space, enabling practitioners to reenter the world with a renewed spirit.

Connecting Mindfulness to Community

The practice suggests that returning consistently to movement, breath, and the body empowers individuals to foster stronger connections within their communities. This shift is intended to contribute to a society driven by abundant loving kindness and compassion rather than anxiety, and suffering.

Souza notes that this mental space makes it easier to apply the yogic principle of brahmacharya. Brahmacharya is translated as restraint or moderation, specifically as it relates to how a person engages with the news.

The Approach to Chair Yoga

The guide posits that yoga can be expressed through either breath or physical poses, and both produce the same effect when performed consciously. Practitioners are encouraged to be gentle and compassionate with themselves throughout the process.

A central tenet of the practice is adaptability. Individuals are instructed to honor their own abilities by adapting the yoga practice to meet their specific bodily needs.

Centering and Observation

The 20-minute session begins with a centering phase focused on self-awareness. Practitioners are encouraged to close their eyes, if comfortable, and notice their current breathing pattern.

The instructions specify that there is no need to change the breathing pattern during this initial phase. Instead, the practitioner is encouraged to adopt a specific mental state:

I suggest that you observe, come to that place of being the watcher or the observer.

Rodrigo Souza via Yoga Journal

By adopting the role of the observer, the practitioner can notice as their breathing naturally slows down.