Have you tried all of the recommendations you can find for a better night’s sleep and still aren’t sleeping well? The National Sleep Foundation recommends young adults and adults receive 7-9 hours of sleep per night. Like many working adults, your sleep patterns and lifestyle might be causing you to experience sleep debt.
If you’re burning the candle at both ends and not getting enough sleep, now is the time to create a new bedtime ritual that will prepare you for a restful night of sleep. These five yoga poses for before bed will help reduce stress, relieve anxiety and relax your body by stimulating your parasympathetic nervous system, i.e., your relaxation response, also sometimes called your rest and digest response.
5.) Child’s Pose (Balasana)
Child’s pose is a classic yoga pose that is both nurturing and grounding. Practice this restorative child’s pose variation on your bed. Come into a kneeling posture and then sit onto your heels, take your knees wider than your hips, bring two pillows lengthwise in front of you and then lower your torso over the stacked pillows. Finally, turn one ear down to the pillow and close your eyes. Hold for two to four minutes and make sure to switch ears about halfway through.
As you settle into the posture begin to deepen your breath. Breathe in through your nose and sigh out through your mouth. Why sigh? When you experience strong emotional states like anxiety, fear, or stress your breathing pattern is disrupted and made shallower and shorter. Letting out a sigh, or many sighs, is like hitting the reset button and can shift your body and mind back to equilibrium.
