[00:00:00] Welcome friend. Today's episode is a little different. It's a guided yoga and relaxation session designed to help you get a good night's sleep. You'll need a yoga mat, some space on the floor, a yoga bolster or pillow, and access to a wall or chair to put your legs up.
[00:01:25] And this beginner friendly sequence is designed to help you unwind before bed and features some relaxing mental exercises to help you let go of the day. But before we begin, let's take a long, slow exhale.
[00:01:41] Now the yoga poses I suggest here are beginner friendly, but there's anything that feels uncomfortable, please stop. This is not suitable if you're pregnant, and it's always best to speak with your doctor before starting anything new, especially if you're pregnant, have an injury, or a health condition.
[00:02:02] Now we're going to start with Cat and Cow. So move into hands and knees position on all fours, with your hands underneath your shoulders and your knees underneath your hips. And we'll do some gentle movement in time to the breath, to release any tension from the spine. As you inhale, drop your belly, tilt your tailbone, open your chest and look forward.
[00:02:30] And as you exhale, draw the belly in, round the upper back, and look down. As you inhale, arch the back. And on the exhale, round the back.
[00:02:46] And repeat this movement in time to your breath. Synchronizing movement to breath.
[00:02:59] And take your time here, there's no rush. This is a great sequence to release tension from the spine. Especially if you have a desk job, or you spend a lot of time sitting.
[00:03:21] Now do one more round with your breath.
[00:03:32] Now we'll take our knees out wide to the outer edges of the mat. Bring the big toes to touch. Sit the hips back onto the heels and walk the hands forward. Lowering the head down onto the mat for Child's Pose. If your head doesn't touch the floor, you can rest your head on your hands.
[00:03:57] If your shoulders feel tight, try taking the hands wider to the edges of the mat. Or even turning your palms upwards.
[00:04:07] Ideally, let your brow rest on the floor, or your hands,
[00:04:16] and make any adjustments that your body needs to get comfortable.
[00:04:26] And as you settle into the pose, become aware of your breath.
[00:04:37] Feel your ribcage expand and contract with your breath,
[00:04:52] allowing the breath to be easy and natural.
[00:04:59] And Child's Pose is a great pose for releasing tension from the hips, the groin, the lower back. It's also calming and relaxing for the nervous system.
[00:05:24] So focus your attention on your breath and the sensations of your body being moved by the breath.
[00:05:45] Now if it feels good, keep your head and shoulders low to the floor and move both hands all the way over to the right as far as you can reach. Bring your left hand on top of the right hand and keep the head and shoulders low.
[00:06:04] Take a few breaths here and notice any stretching sensation on the left side of the body.
[00:06:17] Now move your hands all the way over to the left as far as you can reach. Bring the right hand on top of the left and keep the head and shoulders low to the ground.
[00:06:32] Take a few breaths here and notice what you feel on the right side of the body.
[00:06:48] Now walk the hands back to the centre. Slowly make your way onto your back.
[00:07:00] Lie on your back with your knees bent. And feet hip width distance apart.
[00:07:05] Now interlace the fingers behind your head, just resting the head on the floor, the arms relaxing down. And we're going to engage in some lateral eye movements, which helps to create present moment awareness and guides our nervous system into the parasympathetic state.
[00:07:31] Keep the eyes open, and gaze all the way over to the left.
[00:07:40] Keep the head still, we're just moving the eyes, and there's no need to strain your eyes here.
[00:07:50] Take a few breaths here as you gaze all the way over to the left.
[00:07:59] You may feel like yawning or sighing.
[00:08:07] Now gaze all the way over to the right, without straining, without moving the head.
[00:08:21] Notice any impulse to yawn or sigh.
[00:08:32] Gaze over to the left again.
[00:08:42] Then gaze back over to the right.
[00:08:53] Now gaze straight up at the ceiling, and go into your peripheral vision. Notice everything that you can see without moving the eyes. Notice the whole ceiling,
[00:09:10] perhaps you can see the light, the cornices,
[00:09:17] maybe you can see the walls, or the windows. Notice everything within your field of vision without moving the eyes.
[00:09:34] And now allow your eyes to rest. You might like to close the eyes and feel the heaviness of the eyelids. Or you might prefer to keep the eyes open.
[00:09:48] If you feel restless or fidgety, feel free to move, wriggle, stretch.
[00:09:56] Notice any impulse to yawn or sigh.
[00:10:06] Now stay on the back with the knees bent, and take your yoga bolster or pillow underneath your bottom, into a supported bridge shape. And we want the bolster or pillow in such a way that our hips gently tilt towards our chest.
[00:10:25] Rest the full weight of your hips and bottom on the bolster, allowing your hips to be completely supported here.
[00:10:36] And keep the knees bent to maintain this posterior pelvic tilt. This helps to release our psoas muscles or hip flexors.
[00:10:50] And do whatever feels good with your arms. You can rest them by your side. Maybe take them out wide or overhead.
[00:11:04] Tuck your chin towards your chest so the back of the neck is long.
[00:11:11] And this shape isn't a stretch, it's a passive release for our body, so you might not feel much at all here, and that's okay.
[00:11:25] Now bring your awareness to your breath.
[00:11:33] Feel your breath flow in and out of the nostrils.
[00:11:42] Feel your ribcage expand and contract with your breath.
[00:11:56] Feel your belly rise and fall with your breath.
[00:12:11] Now we'll make our exhales twice as long as our inhales.
[00:12:18] And you can start by inhaling for a count of two, and exhaling for a count of four.
[00:12:30] Inhale for two,
[00:12:34] and exhale for four.
[00:12:42] Keep breathing to your own count, deliberately making the exhales twice as long as the inhales.
[00:12:56] And if you feel short of breath, then you can inhale for a count of one and exhale for two.
[00:13:11] And when we deliberately extend our exhales, it sends a message to our nervous system that we're safe. That we're okay. That we can enter into the parasympathetic state.
[00:13:29] And we want the inhales to feel really easy and natural. As we make the exhales long. Slow and smooth.
[00:13:48] And as you lie here, focusing on your breath, imagine a big metal skip bin. And imagine that you can fill that skip bin with all your worries and concerns. You can fill that skip bin with all the things on your to do list, all your unfinished business and loose ends. Imagine taking all those worries out of your mind and loading them into the skip pin.
[00:14:27] Now imagine closing the lid.
[00:14:32] All your worries are contained.
[00:14:37] They're out of your mind. And if you need them, you can always retrieve them.
[00:14:48] And notice how it feels to have some mental space.
[00:14:56] To have some breathing space.
[00:15:09] And keep those exhales long, slow, and smooth.
[00:15:43] Just a few more breaths here in this pose.
[00:16:02] And when you're ready to come out of the pose, slowly lift your hips, remove the bolster. Lower your hips back down and do whatever feels good for your body. Maybe draw the knees into the chest. Perhaps roll the knees side to side like windscreen wipers. Or do anything else that feels right for you.
[00:16:33] Feel free to yawn, sigh or stretch.
[00:16:49] Next we'll move into our reclining butterfly shape. So stay on your back. Bend the knees. And bring the soles of the feet together, allowing the knees to go wide. And you can rest your head on a bolster or pillow, or perhaps take a bolster underneath your legs for support.
[00:17:17] Do whatever feels good with the arms. And gently tuck your chin towards your chest to lengthen the back of the neck.
[00:17:35] Now focus on the sensation of your belly rising and falling with your breath.
[00:17:45] Feel your belly inflate like a balloon on the inhale.
[00:17:52] And I'll let it all go on the exhale.
[00:18:02] Belly breathing is wonderfully calming for our nervous system,
[00:18:07] and the more attention we give to the sensations of our breath, the more settled our mind becomes.
[00:19:09] Remaining here for a few more belly breaths,
[00:19:29] and when you're ready to come out of the pose, use your hands to draw your knees together.
[00:19:38] And then do what feels good for your body. Have a stretch, wriggle around.
[00:20:00] Now we're going to take our legs up the wall. So if you have a blank wall, move up to it quite close. Sit sideways, then swing your legs up the wall as you lie back on the floor. And you can prop your hips up with a bolster or pillow.
[00:20:20] You don't have to have straight legs, and you can take the legs wide if that feels good.
[00:20:27] If you don't have a wall handy, you can rest your legs on the edge of the bed, a chair, or the lounge. Resting the calves and feet on the support.
[00:20:44] You might like to take the arms out wide, or even overhead.
[00:20:56] Tuck your chin towards your chest. This helps lengthen the muscles at the base of the skull and also activates the vagus nerve.
[00:21:14] And once you're comfortable and settled, start making your exhales twice as long as your inhales again.
[00:21:34] Our inhales are energising, our exhales are relaxing. So when we prolong the exhale, it has a relaxing effect on our body. On our nervous system, on our mind,
[00:21:57] try to bring a real sense of quality to your exhales.
[00:22:11] And legs up the wall is wonderful for circulation, it's great for lymphatic drainage, it lowers out blood pressure,
[00:22:24] it's fantastic for fertility, menstrual problems and menopause symptoms. And it's a great pose for insomnia and stress.
[00:22:41] And when we focus on our breathing, it gives the mind something simple and repetitive to do and this actually helps the mind relax. Rather than daydreaming, rather than ruminating on our problems, we rest our attention on our breath. This acts like an anchor for mind. Helps to keep the mind present in the moment rather than drifting off into thought.
[00:23:27] And it's really normal to have a busy mind with lots of thoughts. It's normal to have trouble focusing. But with practice we can learn to direct our attention away from thinking and onto our breath.
[00:23:48] This deprives our thoughts of attention so they have less of an effect on us.
[00:24:11] Let the inhales happen naturally, as you make the exhales long, slow and smooth.
[00:24:20] And when you're ready to exit the pose, slowly roll to your side, and take your time to come up to sitting.
[00:25:01] Feel free to stretch, wriggle, yawn or sigh.
[00:25:10] Now the next pose is surfboard. So we're going to lie over a bolster, face down. The bolster is going to run the length of our torso. So we want the bolster to start around our heart, or slightly lower. As we lie down over the bolster, our legs are extended and we want to have our knees touching the floor.
[00:25:42] Either rest your forehead on the floor or on your hands. Ideally, we want to feel some pressure on our brow. And make sure the bolster isn't up too high. We want our neck and throat to be free. If it feels uncomfortable, you can push the bolster lower. Or if this doesn't work for you, you can just lie flat on your belly without any support underneath.
[00:26:12] And this is a passive release of our psoas. So we're not looking for any stretching sensation. This is all about relaxation.
[00:26:25] Lying prone or face down creates pressure on the belly and chest, which in turn creates proprioception or awareness of our body in space. This has a calming effect on our nervous system.
[00:26:44] Pressure on the brow stimulates an acupuncture point called yin tang, which is calming for the mind. And pressure on the brow also brings blood flow to our prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain that's responsible for calm thinking.
[00:27:04] Now make whatever adjustments you need to get really comfortable here.
[00:27:17] Now imagine that you can breathe into the spine. As you inhale, send your breath down the spine to your tailbone. As you exhale, imagine sending the breath up the spine to the top of the head.
[00:27:36] On the inhale, the breath goes down the spine. And on the exhale, the breath moves up the spine.
[00:27:52] Make this your focus. Inhaling down the spine, exhaling up the spine.
[00:28:04] And spinal breathing is incredibly calming for the nervous system. brings us into that parasympathetic state of deep relaxation.
[00:28:24] And as you lie here, breathing down and up your spine, feel, imagine or visualize a small window on the back of your head. And imagine you can open that window to let some light and air into your mind.
[00:28:46] And as you open that window, imagine any old or stale thoughts just floating out the window.
[00:28:56] Watch those old thoughts drift and float out the window.
[00:29:10] And this open window allows air to circulate in your mind.
[00:29:20] Ventilating your mind.
[00:29:26] And reducing any stuffiness.
[00:29:37] And as you aerate your mind, notice a sense of mental space.
[00:30:38] Just a few more breaths here down and up the spine,
[00:31:03] and when you're ready to come out of the pose, slowly bring some weight into your hands, ease your way back up, and do whatever your body feels like doing. You might like child's pose, you might like to lie on your belly or on your back,
[00:31:25] listen to what your body wants to do.
[00:31:30] Now slowly make your way onto your back with your knees bent,
[00:31:57] and walk your feet out wide to the outer edges of the mat. Take your arms out wide like a T shape, and slowly roll the knees side to side like windscreen wipers, keeping the feet on the mat.
[00:32:44] Now make your way into any reclining position that feels good for you. You can use your pillow or bolster to get comfortable here.
[00:33:07] Let your breath become easy and natural.
[00:33:18] Let the breath just happen to you.
[00:33:39] Now bring your awareness to tomorrow.
[00:33:44] Contemplate all the things you have on.
[00:33:52] Now imagine tomorrow going well for you.
[00:33:59] Imagine waking up and feeling good.
[00:34:06] Imagine going about your morning routine feeling calm and relaxed.
[00:34:18] Imagine going to work or going about your day, getting everything done with a sense of ease.
[00:34:33] Feeling confident in your interactions with other people.
[00:34:41] Feeling productive and purposeful.
[00:34:47] Feeling calm and in control as you go about your day.
[00:34:59] Imagine your afternoon going well,
[00:35:05] getting all your tasks done with a sense of ease and calm.
[00:35:08] Imagine your evening,
[00:35:21] and imagine winding down before bed.
[00:35:31] Now imagine laying your head on the pillow tomorrow night, reflecting back on the day that was.
[00:35:41] I'm feeling grateful that you had a great day,
[00:35:54] and let yourself sleep tonight knowing that tomorrow is going to be a good day,
[00:36:01] and that you can handle it,
[00:36:06] because you'll be at your best,
[00:36:14] you'll be at your best,
[00:36:26] you'll be at your best.
[00:36:36] Now goodnight my friend, till next time.
