If you start talking about sleep, you’ll hear many people saying that they don’t sleep well. They are not able to fall asleep, or they wake up in the middle of the night and can’t get back to sleep, or they feel they are not sleeping deeply enough.
All of the above can result in complaints like more stress, anxiety, depression, mistakes at work and lots of stress-related health issues.
Yoga helps!
If stress is the reason your sleep isn’t as restful or restorative as you would like it to be, then yoga can help.
Practising yoga during the day will help balance out your nervous system. Especially if you make sure you practise a mixture of yoga styles. Dynamic yoga styles, like Vinyasa Flow or Ashtanga, stimulate and balance the active part of your nervous system (sympathetic nervous system). Whereas gentle Hatha, Restorative and Yin style Yoga activate the part of your nervous system responsible for the relaxation response (parasympathetic nervous system).
How I’ve changed my own yoga practice
What I have been doing myself lately is to add on 10 – 15 minutes of bedtime yoga to my regular yoga practice. Literally, right before I go to bed, making sure I have already brushed my teeth and done whatever else I need to do right before sleep. This way I can go straight from my yoga mat into bed. To me the difference is remarkable. My body is more relaxed, my mind has calmed and my sleep is certainly deeper. I wake up with a much more relaxed body and mind.
This has an effect on the rest of the day too as you can imagine, I feel less stress, anxiety, I’m sharper at work, making fewer mistakes and so on…
Because it works so well for me, I made a set of 10 classes for you to follow.
Yoga for better sleep – program
The 10 classes are a mixture of Hatha Yoga with Restorative poses and Yin Yoga. All focused on getting the body and mind to unwind and relax, and the breath to become free.
Join me in Yoga for Better Sleep and make a commitment for 10 days in a row to practise 10-15 min of yoga with me just before bed.
If you practise these classes your body will release tension just before you hop into bed, your mind will have calmed down and your breath will feel freer.
I promise you it will make a difference to your night’s sleep but also to how you are feeling the next day.
Love,
Esther
