Yoga for a Goodnights Sleep

The holidays can be just as much a source of great joy as a source of great stress. Spending time with family and loved ones should be a pleasurable experience but often the need for everything to be perfect clouds our judgment and ruins our holiday spirit. With dinners to prepare, presents to buy and expectations to meet, it all gets a little too intense sometimes. We might socialize a little too much; add too many things to do in one day and push back “me” time a little too far back on the priority list.

Getting a good nights sleep should be your number one priority every season but especially so during the holidays. Take it from someone who knows, waking up to a list of tasks the size of Santa’s “good girls and boys” scroll is a lot easier to a well-rested brain. What helps me during this time is a nightly yoga routine; this is a short sequence of poses that will do wonders for your rest, your overall well-being and your motivation the next day. The poses are accessible to all levels of physique so don’t be deterred if you are new or maybe have never even tried yoga.

So without further ado: SLEEP LIKE A BABY YOGA.

1. Neck Stretch: Siting comfortably on the bed tilt your head from one shoulder to the other, proceed to them make soft semi-circles with your head bend. Make sure to do both ways. Tilt your head forwards and backwards slowly, then move in circles first clockwise then anti-clockwise.

Cat Pose

Cow Pose

Puppy Pose

Seated forwardbend

Seated forwardbend

Eye of the Needle

Eye of the Needle

Leg Stretch

Lying butterfly

10. Straighten your legs, close your eyes and allow your self to fully relax. Don’t attempt to come back into reality instead stay in this effortless, meditative state of consciousness and let your mind and body heal and restore your energy levels.

Besides the obvious beneficial stretching of the muscles, bones and ligaments of your body these exercises restore the life energy flowing within your organs. It is known that vital organs connect on to psychological factors such as emotions and therefore will affect directly how we perceive and view the world. When out of balance these organs can directly influence our emotional states bringing worry, depression, fear and anger. This practice will stimulate the flow of energy, breaking through physical and psychological blockages and restoring balance throughout.

New energy flowing through your body will bring new motivations, new ideas and shiny new emotions. It is up to you to let the old emotions go for the new ones to flow in, whatever happened that day whether you had a blast with your family or a horrible day that brought nothing but despair those emotions are certainly not eternal and by far not greater than the ones to come. Digesting and registering both negative and positive emotions clears the psyche and brings peace of mind.

I wish you a good night!