Why carry a stressed mind and tense shoulder knots to bed when you can shed them away with – yoga? After a long day, all your emotions from these day-to-day affairs come crashing down, leaving your body exhausted and far from peaceful sleep. This is where you need to loop in some relaxing yoga routine before bed. As you read on, you will discover that a habit of yoga in the evening has many other benefits besides calming your nerves and relaxing your taut tendons.
Benefits Of Bedtime Yoga
Sets the stage for relaxation – As you practice calming yoga poses, your body tones down energy levels. Stretching, bending in slow motion, brings back peace of mind by lowering the production of the stress hormone cortisol. When peace is established in the mind, even the blood pressure begins to drop, allowing you to enter a state of restful mind, body, and soul state. In short, it’s another way to fight off your insomnia.
Eases Up Sour Muscles & Aching Joints – There are times when you stay awake all night due to a painful knee or stiff muscles. But you can end those sleepless nights of pain by slipping into some stress-relieving yoga poses. As you go about your daily routine, you engage in various physical activities, which one way or another accumulate rough up your joints and pull at your muscles. Get rid of all those muscle stiffness and joint pains with a dose of bedtime yoga.
Improves Blood Circulation – Yoga is not about just pulling out your leg or bending your limbs in some weird way. Nope, when you do yoga poses, you inhale and exhale in a controlled manner. This ends up uplifting your blood circulation. And better blood circulation means fewer blood clots, leveled-up detoxification, and faster cell regeneration. Yoga is indeed very beneficial.
Losing weight is an added blessing – If you do some physical activity continuously for even a month, you’re bound to lose weight. You end up bedtime yoga with one purpose – sound sleep. As you practice yoga, you begin to realize that it has many benefits, including weight loss.
Yoga Poses To Try Before Bed
Cat Pulling Its Tail Pose
Keeping your head straight facing the ceiling, cross your one leg over the other to another side. Take the leg that’s yet to be bent and pull it up sideways the opposite side. Keep the extra hand at the neck resting your body a little – and you’re done.
Child’s pose or balasana
Sit on your leg, and then bend your body downwards until you touch the floor. Do remember to keep your hand outstretched and stretch your lower back and hips as much as possible to ease the tension in them. To tell you the truth, it’s all that stretching that is most beneficial for your health.
Butterfly pose or baddha konasana
Most people have at least tried this pose once in their lives. Pull your legs to the front and bend them at the knees so that both heels and toes are clamped down. Sounds easy, but it’s actually pretty difficult. Making a butterfly shape with your legs and then moving up and down in a vertical motion is easier said than done but do give it a try.
Happy baby pose or ananda balasana
Ever seen a baby with legs stretched out up and sideways? Do that and then just use your hands to hold the feet and pull them more sideways. Keep a smile on your face and practice mindful breathing, to keep your mind calm and happy. You’ll definitely have fun through this one.
It’s understandable that after a long day, accommodating a brief yoga routine takes a lot of willpower, but once you start and continue, this’ll be a habit you won’t be able to let go of.
Images: Pinterest
