Following these simple guidelines for yoga practice can maximize the positive benefits of practicing yoga. Whether you want to lose weight, gain strength and flexibility, or minimize stress and negative energy, yoga can help you reach those goals if you practice mindfully and regularly.
Basic Guidelines for Yoga Practice

In order to reap the benefits of yoga, your practice should be frequent enough to keep you in a yoga mindset between sessions. During your yoga practice sessions, you must focus only on practicing yoga. This is the moment to forget about your to-do list and ignore the negative things that happened that day.

Frequency of Yoga Practice
There is no single amount of yoga practice per week that is right for everyone. One person may have enough in two sessions per week, while another person needs two sessions per day in order to get the same benefit. Generally speaking, the more frequently you practice yoga, the better the effect will be. However, if you can only practice twice a week, you should still do so in order to reap those benefits.

One way to help yoga fit into our busy modern schedules is to break yoga practice up over the course of the day. While going to the yoga studio four nights a week may be unfathomable, you can probably find ten minutes each morning, noon and night to practice yoga--this is a great way to ensure that you stay in a yoga mindset during your 'real' life, and not just while you are at your yoga studio. Several yoga DVDs feature short yoga segments--use these to come up with energizing morning sequences, such as sun salutations, and relaxing evening sequences, such as restorative poses followed by meditation or relaxing in corpse pose.

Being Present in Yoga
In order for yoga to affect every aspect of your life, you have to practice yoga mindfully. This means mentally shutting out other objects and events while you practice yoga. Still reeling from a negative comment from your boss? Gently accept it; you cannot change it, and the more you ruminate over it, the worse it will make you feel. As you mentally accept each negative thing and your busy schedule, you will become more present in your practice of yoga, maximizing the benefits of your practice.

Accepting Yoga Limits
Many people want to become more flexible by practicing yoga. While this is certainly an eventual effect of yoga, the best way to accomplish it is slowly and gently. Yoga is not a performance or a competition. As you move into each pose, resist the urge to look around at your classmates and try to stretch farther into the pose than they do. The goal of each and every yoga pose is to create the ideal posture for your body's size and shape. The best pose for your neighbor is not the same best pose for you. Be mentally present in your own yoga practice, not in your neighbor's. By accepting your body's limits, you can gently move forward over time.

Yoga Lifestyle
Lastly, in order to maximally reap the benefits of yoga, adopt the elements of a yoga lifestyle that appeal to you. While a vegetarian diet may go too far for you, and you certainly don't have to become vegetarian to benefit from yoga practice, adopting many elements of postures, meditation, and breathing exercises will help you maximize the effect of your yoga practice. Go beyond the yoga postures, and incorporate yoga breathing exercises and meditation. While postures are largely responsible for flexibility and strength, meditation and breathing are largely responsible for stress-relieving benefits of yoga.

These simple guidelines for yoga practice can help you enjoy your yoga practice and benefit from it, virtually from the first week onwards.