Yoga Poses for A Better Night’s Sleep

if you can’t fall asleep you might want
to make like a cobra or Bend like a dog
hi I’m Veronica with watchmojo.com and
today yoga instructor Jen lorac is
showing us some postures for a better
night’s sleep
I’m gonna give you a few quick kind of
forward bend so saying in general
forward bends are gonna be something
that are gonna calm the hormones and
body calm the nervous system the
adrenals so all we’re gonna do is just
place the hands place the feet or the
legs parallel to each other and hip
width apart you can even spread the toes
so that everything’s active and now even
make the legs super active so the
muscles hug onto the bones the legs all
the way around and even push the thigh
bones down okay place the hands down
behind you and then even lift the heart
lengthen the spine and now you’re
welcome to stay here but the more that
you fold probably the better keep the
shoulder blades onto the back and slowly
with the heart move forward and you can
just bring the hands wherever they go or
if you can even you know touch your toes
that’s fine if you have just gotten up
out of bed what you can do is place a
pillow maybe over your legs are a few
pillows and stack them so that you can
simply like just lie over completely
supported another one you come back up
it’s gonna be the similar thing you’re
gonna take the right foot back you’re
gonna bend the knee and you’re gonna
bring the back leg parallel like to the
back of your mat so bring it back just a
little bit yeah and then you’re just
gonna once again take a breath in long
spine and on the exhale then bow forward
and you just go to where you can go to
where it’s comfortable actually another
even option to this is if you just bow
like right in the V of the legs and you
can place again like pillows or
whatever’s gonna make you the most
comfortable even a blanket that’s folded
you know just be creative especially if
either you’re just going to bed or
you’ve just kind of
you know needed to really really get up
out of that what I’m gonna do for
Veronica here is place the blanket right
across the mat so bring the knees on to
the blanket and bring the knees wide so
mounds are the big toes together and
then you’re gonna take the bolster
you’re gonna bring it between the legs
and on the exhale just bow over and walk
the hands forward and what you can do
here more is keep the elbows close into
you so that it becomes more of a cozy
pose and you can turn your head to the
right or to the left
i minimum three minutes chill out relax
bring the breath evenly into the front
of the body evenly into the back of the
body and then you know when you’re ready
where the hands are push the hands into
the earth and then you come all the way
up the next pose that we’re going to do
is called supported bound angle or
supported baddha konasana
so the bolster the blankets going to
stay the same with the bolster you’re
gonna pull back and then Veronica is
going to come and just kind of sit right
here and you’re gonna place the lower
back right up against the bolster now
the bolster sometimes can be too rounded
for the lower back so you know it
doesn’t need to be a bolster it can be
blankets that you have on your bed it
can be a bunch of blankets that you’re
simply folding up and then what
Veronica’s gonna do is just take a
breath in bring the bottoms of the feet
together she’s gonna bring them like
quite close to the body and again if you
can’t bring them close in not a problem
if you have any pain or any sort of pain
and then you’re just gonna once again
breathe in breath in and on the exhale
just lean back so you can just walk back
with your hands you’re gonna open the
palms up towards the ceiling this is
still pretty good
so here sometimes there can be an extra
bit of like either tension or for some
people depending on the flexibility of
your hips there can be a little bit too
much kind of stretch on the inner thigh
so what I’m going to do is take this
blanket and just fold it and support it
underneath the knees so you’re going to
hold this for somewhere you know minimum
three minutes if you can do it up until
you know ten minutes if you want
depending on how good you are not good
you feel here
and then you know when you’re ready
you’re simply going to bring the knees
in to Center and you’re going to make
your way onto your right or to your left
side and then come up to sitting slowly
what I’m gonna have Veronica do now is
something called viparita karani it
means legs up the wall so it pretty much
is the name so what I’m gonna have
Veronica do is lie in a fetal position
with the bomb up close to the wall
you’re gonna have a blanket somewhere
kind of close to lengthwise across the
mat and so she’s not going to bring them
buttocks too close to the wall you’re
gonna be just a little bit of a space
and again don’t stress yourself out of
this kind of stuff because you know
you’re here to relax so there’s not much
you can do super wrong here okay so now
she’s just gonna turn and she’s gonna
keep the legs straight and lift those
legs straight up the wall so the feet
can either be closed or they can be um
hip-width apart if you push your feet
into the wall we’ll just show everybody
the blanket can be too far for it and
then lower down and this means that the
pelvis doesn’t have a chance to drop and
settle that’s what you want and then it
can also be too far back where the bum
is like almost coming off of a blanket
if you want somewhere in the middle it’s
always about finding balance right so
where the lower back the sacrum settles
into the blanket and there’s a little
bit of a drop of the leg bones into the
pelvis if you’re having somebody do
restorative with you they can you know
give you a nice little push but if you
can try to let the shoulders roll back
and the arm bones roll back that’s
beautiful and you can close the eyes and
set them I had an amazing teacher that
used to swear by this if she bought
small amounts of sleep and really needed
kind of a pick-me-up that when she did
this for 15 minutes it would equal about
two hours sleep and I think it’s
documented somewhere but anyway so so I
would suggest this pose for somewhere of
like three to five minutes so you know
just before you go to bed is one of
those
poses try not to do it you know for 10
minutes might be a little bit long now
to get out of the pose Veronica simply
going to bring the knees into the chest
and then roll to the side you can even
take a moment settle with the arm or the
hands right underneath the head so
remember like in our days we rush and we
move and we stress about big things and
small things so remember that you’re
trying to chill out you’re trying to
settle and so just take your time to
stay in the moment and on your you know
on your own time you can use both hands
to push yourself into the earth and then
come up to sitting
and that should be a good kind of
beginning to your your sleep problems