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All Lifestyle Our Community Santosha Offerings Trainings Types Of Yoga
10/2/2024 0 Comments How Yoga Can Improve Your SleepIn today's fast-paced world, many of us struggle with getting a good night's sleep. Whether it's work stress, anxiety, or screen time, it can be hard to quiet the mind and body for restful slumber. Luckily, yoga offers a natural and effective way to improve your sleep quality! By integrating certain yoga poses, breathwork, and mindfulness into your routine, you can calm your nervous system, relax tense muscles, and prepare your body for deep, restorative sleep. If you have been experiencing mental or physical restlessness, exhaustion, and/or frustration surrounding your sleep, it might be time to change your routine. In addition to the Sleep workshop we have on October 12th, here’s how yoga can help you sleep better and which poses are most effective for winding down before bed. Why Yoga Helps Improve Sleep Yoga isn't just about flexibility and physical fitness—it also taps into mindfulness and relaxation, which can work wonders for your sleep. Here’s why:
Best Yoga Poses to Improve Sleep To get the most out of yoga for better sleep, focus on poses that promote relaxation, stretching, and gentle movements. And better yet, all of these can be done on your bed! Here are the best poses to include in your pre-sleep routine: 1. Child’s Pose (Balasana) Child's Pose is a comforting, grounding posture that calms the mind and relieves tension, especially in the lower back and hips. It gently stretches the spine and encourages deep breathing. How to do it:
2. Legs Up the Wall (Viparita Karani) This simple pose is excellent for promoting circulation, reducing swelling in the legs, and calming the nervous system. It's perfect for alleviating stress and preparing the body for rest. How to do it:
3. Reclined Butterfly Pose (Supta Baddha Konasana) This relaxing pose gently opens the hips and relieves lower body tension while promoting a deep sense of calm. How to do it:
4. Standing Forward Bend (Uttanasana) A forward fold is great for releasing tension in the spine and hamstrings while encouraging blood flow to the head, which can help calm your mind and ease stress. How to do it:
5. Supine Spinal Twist (Supta Matsyendrasana) Twisting poses like this one are wonderful for relieving tension in the spine and back muscles. It also helps with digestion, which can be a common cause of sleep discomfort. How to do it:
6. Corpse Pose (Savasana) In this pose, Savasana helps to fully release all muscular tension and stills the mind. It’s often practiced at the end of a yoga session to integrate the benefits of the poses leading to this meditation. How to do it:
Incorporating Breathwork (Pranayama) for Better Sleep While yoga poses are crucial, breathwork (pranayama) plays an equally important role in calming the nervous system and preparing your body for sleep. One particularly effective breathing technique is 4-7-8 Breathing, designed to reduce anxiety and help you fall asleep faster. This can be done seated or lying down – whatever helps soothe your mind best! How to practice 4-7-8 Breathing:
Tips for Your Restful Pre-Sleep Yoga Routine
In-Person SLEEP Workshop For more on this topic, come to our Sleep workshop next week! Holistic Health is all about our relationship to these core areas of life, off of the mat. Santosha’s 4 Pillars of Health series with Alexander Puentes continues with the topic of SLEEP: focusing on our relationship to healthy habits of rest. This workshop still has spots open for Saturday October 12th from 11am-1pm! At this in-person workshop you will learn:
This class is part of our monthly Fall Wellness Series. Other dates and classes include:
**WORKSHOP REGISTRATION IS REQUIRED AT LEAST 24hrs IN ADVANCE** So therefore… If you’re looking for a natural way to improve your sleep, yoga offers a powerful solution! The combination of gentle stretches, mindful movement, and breathwork can help reduce stress, ease tension, and prepare your body and mind for deep, restful sleep. Try incorporating the poses and practices mentioned above into your nighttime routine, and watch your sleep quality improve. Sweet dreams! (: Santosha Yoga Collective
“Santosha” is a sanskrit word that means contentment. Our Loomis-based Yoga studio brings together decades-long practitioners and new students alike. We believe Yoga is beneficial for every body and will make sure you find the right classes to support your yoga journey. With 24 weekly yoga classes from Vinyasa and Balance, to Chair, Yin, Kundalini, Iyengar, and Restore, our aim is to provide a space of contentment for students and teachers of yoga as we honor movement, holistic wellness, and community as a way of life. We serve the beautiful community of Northern California. We offer these yoga styles and many more through workshops, our community room, and themed classes. Please reach out on our “Contact Us!” page if you have a yoga theme you’d like to experience in the beautiful Santosha studio. Post written by Stephanie Alston ERYT200 and Annie Schwab RYT200.
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AuthorThis blog is authored in collaboration by registered yoga teachers and guest educators at Santosha Yoga Collective. Archives
November 2024
CategoriesAll Lifestyle Our Community Santosha Offerings Trainings Types Of Yoga |