Yoga for Bedtime for More Restful Sleep

Hey Yogis , thank you so much for tuning in .

Again , especially if you're having a desk job and you're sitting a lot or maybe you're driving a lot .

So your body is most of the day in the same position .

It feels especially good to stretch out right before going to sleep .

This is a very gentle full body stretching routine .

I'll try to keep it short and this is something you can do right before going to bed , maybe even in bed , maybe on the ground , using your yoga mat or just on your carpet or whatever you have at home .

That's all you need for this practice .

Let's do it .

Let's go ahead and come on to your belly .

We starting out in post , especially like I just said , you're sitting a lot driving or at your office , you want arch your back a little bit , find a little bit more back bends .

So come onto your forearms , bring the elbows right underneath the shoulders on top of your toes and then pulled the shoulders back , move the chest forward .

So again , in this practice , we don't want to go necessarily really deep .

This is really not the the kind of practice right before you go to sleep or you want to go deep or work hard or work on the breath or do whatever .

It's just easy , gentle to feel better and hopefully sleep better .

So push the chest forward , pull the shoulders back and gauge your glutes .

Just find that back bend here .

If this is too much for you , it feels uncomfortable for your lower back .

You can bring the legs wide , the apart .

So the wide the apart , you bring your legs , the the more gentle it is for the lower back .

For those of us that want to go deeper .

You can straighten your arms and come into seal posts .

Don't have to straighten the arms fully .

You can keep them bend a little bit , make sure you externally rotate round the triceps in and keep their breath nice and soft .

Just put a couple of more breaths here wherever you are and slowly release .

Now , bend your right leg and then reach for that right foot , press the top of your right foot down .

So you're pressing the right heel towards the right hip .

This is called half frog .

What we're doing is we're stretching the right shoulder , the anterior delta at the front side of the shoulder and also the right thigh , the right quad , make sure this feels fine for your right knee .

So you basically , you wanna have the , the shen right above the , the thigh and not going out to the side like this , press into your left form .

So what you release , switch sides , right forearm down , bend your left leg , grab that left foot and then press it down .

Like I said , you really don't need much for this practice .

You can just do this in your bed .

If you're watching this video in your bed right before sleep , make sure you can or make sure you turn on the blue light filter .

There's apps you can download that , do that , that filter out the blue light .

Uh And depending if you have a Macbook or so they already have it built in .

It's called night shift , reducing the blue light .

But the one or two hours before going to bed really can improve your sleep quality one more time back to Sphinx .

And so send the hips back for child's post , walk their hands forward , relax your forehead down to the ground .

Just a couple of breaths here , slowly release , rise up .

Now we're gonna sit down , sit down on the butt .

So bring the legs forward , bring the soles of your feet together .

And if you want to take this really gently , you bring the legs wide away from you .

If you want to go deeper , you bring the the heels close to your hips , just find what feels comfortable for .

You , grab the feet and then bring the elbows outside the shins and fold forward and down .

Also round your back , tuck your chin to the chest .

So we not only stretch the lower body but also the upper body and maybe you can go deeper in this post .

Usually in your practice , it's all good .

It's really not about that at all .

You just want to stretch , feel the sensation , most importantly , make this uh moving meditation .

So you want to unwind , relax , let go of what happened in the day and get ready for bed and for your , for your well deserved rest .

Couple more breaths .

And I find that it's mostly the lower body that's stiff .

At least for me , especially if I'm sitting a lot during the day .

Then I want to work mostly in the lower body , mostly the hips , the lower back and stretch all of that out .

And I don't really want to do so much for the upper body , sorry , and then come onto your back .

Now bring your heels close to your hips , present to your heels , lift your hips up , bridge post , you can interlace your hands behind your back .

If you want to come even higher onto the shoulder blades , get the glutes , lift your hips up high .

Keep a gap between the chin and the chest all over these down .

Now , cross your right ankle over the over the left side for figure four .

Now reach through that hole that you create with your legs , grab the left hamstring or the left shin and then pull both of your legs closer to you , relax your head back down to the ground , make sure the right foot is flexed that the right toes are pointing towards the right knee that helps to protect the right knee joint .

Just hang out here , breath both , both legs into your chest .

All you really bring your left foot back down to the ground and then you can either keep the legs like this and just bring them over to your left or you slide the right foot at the right leg over the left thigh and then you scoot your hips to the right and bring your legs all the way over to the left , all the way down to the ground for a twist , extend your right arm away from you and place your left hand on top of the , of the legs just to add a little bit more extra weight .

Five breaths here , use your left hand to help your legs back to center .

Unwind the legs , hug both knees into the chest , find the other side right foot down , cross the left ankle over the right thigh .

Figure , four , hug both knees , both legs into your chest , flex your left foot , protect your left knee .

Just hang out here .

Five breaths if you have trouble sleeping or falling asleep .

We did a video about the five most important tips .

At least that we think to help both sleep to sleep better .

One of them is ready to reduce the screen time .

Right before bed and not be on your phone so much or on your computer , especially without any blue light filter .

All the blue light that's coming nowadays from LED S is stimulating the brain and just kind of tricks your brain that it's still daytime and you still have to think a lot and be awake .

And so by turning a filter on a blue light filter for uh basically after sunset , turn it on and then it will help you sleep .

Find a twist to the right .

There's also blue light glasses you can get and wear after sunset just at home .

When you're walking around , you just have blue light glasses on .

Some are pretty stylish , some look very yellow .

You look more like your robo cop but doesn't matter how it looks .

I mean , if it's good for you , go for it like I said , we keep this really short .

We don't want to do like a 30 minutes or one hour stretching routine right before bed .

So you can also the second time you do this .

So if you just take the stretches and movements and you do them in your own pace , feel free to do it faster or slower .

You can also always pause the video .

Use your right hand , help your legs back to the center .

Huck both knees into the chest .

Now for the last one , grab the out edge of your feet for happy baby .

Try to keep the lower back and the shoulders on the ground as you move your knees into your armpits , I recommend closing the eyes and maybe you want to go ahead and straighten one leg , keep the other leg bent .

So with this routine , we really targeted everything we found extension in the spine .

We worked on some gentle back beds .

We stretched our thighs , our hamstrings opened the inner hips , the th the thighs , the groin area and also stretched our performers and the outer hips .

So really everything you need and we also twisted which side and the other leg straight in the other .

Maybe both .

Feel free to stay here .

Bring both legs up and over your head for plow the gap between the chin and the chest .

Always protecting the neck and all of our joints you release , hug both knees into the chest , close your eyes , give yourself a nice hug .

Be proud of yourself for wrapping up your day .

Finishing up your day with a with a couple of minutes of investing in yourself .

Take a deep breath into the nose open .

Now let it go and extend the heels , straighten the legs .

Take all the space you need , maybe grab a blanket , pull it over , you just let the video end and I wish you a wonderful night , restful sleep .

One of the most important things for our health is really to get enough sleep and get enough quality sleep .

So take the time to invest .

Thank you so much for watching and I'll see you in the next video and I must .