15 min Gentle Bedtime Yoga for Beginners - Evening Yoga Stretch

Hi , everyone .

Thank you so much for tuning in .

My name is Cassandra and I'm gonna take you through this very gentle bedtime yoga sequence .

So this class is actually going to be done all reclined .

So laying down the entire time , which means if you wanted to , you could even do this class in bed .

And normally when I'm teaching an online yoga class , I take you through Shiva and we come out of it and close together but because this is meant to help you fall asleep .

Um I'm actually just going to leave you and Shiva end the video there so that you can hopefully just drift off to bed .

So just give you giving you a heads up on that .

So whenever you're ready , no props are required and we're going to begin in reclined butterfly pose .

So , so laying all the way down just with a gentle hip opener , bringing the soles of your feet together from letting your knees fall apart .

You can choose how close you have your heels in or how far out you'd like them to be and it can be really nice to just let your hands rest over your belly or if you'd like to stretch through your upper body a little more , you can reach your arms up overhead .

And as much as possible throughout this class , I encourage you to have your eyes closed just so you can begin that winding down process .

And usually when I'm teaching a yoga class , I'm encouraging students to breathe in a way where the inhale is just as long as the exhale .

But if you know , you have a harder time falling asleep , you might wanna try having a longer exhale .

So maybe inhaling , counting up to four .

And when you exhale , you can count maybe to six or to eight .

This is a really wonderful way to activate the parasympathetic nervous system and to give yourself those sleep signals to relax even deeper .

So take another five deep breaths right here in the pose .

So if you had your arms reaching up overhead , you can just slide them back down and you can lift your knees back up .

We're gonna pull our right thigh in towards our chest and straighten the left leg out in front of us , coming into a twist and adding a nice hamstring stretch at the same time .

So you're going to cross your right thigh over your body to the left .

And then if you'd like , you can also straighten your right leg , sliding your hand further down and reaching your right arm out to the side , try to release any tension from that right leg .

It's totally fine .

If your right knee is bent , it doesn't have to be perfectly straight .

We don't want to be exerting ourselves too much in this class because we are practicing with the intention of being able to fall asleep afterwards .

So you can go ahead and bend your right knee and come back through to center and bring your left foot flat to the floor and just hold on to either your big right toe with your two piece fingers or just your foot with your right hand for half happy baby .

So we're trying to push that knee open to the side while also pulling it down .

And I'm letting my left thigh kind of flop over to the side to provi provide a little bit of a counterweight so that you're not rolling over on your right .

Just a gentle stretch here .

Keep sending that deep breath all the way down , softening the muscles along your jaw in your neck and in your shoulders .

Let's go ahead and cross the right ankle over the top of our left knee for reclined pigeon poses , pull that left thigh in towards your belly , either holding onto the back of the thigh or the front of your shin .

Really important here that your upper body is relaxed and heavy .

Give that like one last big squeeze and let's release .

We'll prepare for our twist and hamstring stretch on the second side so your right leg can straighten in front of you and you can pull your left knee in towards your belly .

We're going to cross that left leg over and maybe straighten your left leg any amount .

Mhm .

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Setting ourselves up for half happy baby pose .

Holding on either to your big left toe or to the outer edge of your left foot .

And you can let your right thigh drop down right .

I'm trying to align my ankle over my knee and I'm using my arm to push that knee open and also pull the thigh down into our reclined pigeon poses , crossing the left ankle over the top of the right knee .

My thigh is moving away from my chest as I pull that right leg in just using these poses to release any tension that might be built up in our body from our day .

Also a great way to clear your mind .

Give it one last little squeeze here and let's go ahead and release .

You're gonna straighten both legs out in front of you .

We'll come into our banana pose , which is a really great side body stretch so you can move your hips over to the right and then walk your ankles and your feet to the left .

You can also bring your head and shoulders a little bit more to the left .

And I like to reach my arms up over head , grabbing a hold just like of the wrists or the upper arms .

And you can also cross your right ankle over your left one .

Just really try to emphasize pushing that right hip bone down .

So just like a nice side body stretch from your right shoulder down to your waist , down to your hip and maybe down the leg , three more breaths in this pose .

And if you had your ankles crossed , you can just release this and we'll go to the other side .

So you can bring your feet in to help lift your hips up , shifting them over to the left and your upper body goes to the right , straightening your legs once more and walking your heels , your ankles to the right , maybe crossing left ankle on top , pushing our left hip bone down , maybe finding that extended breath rhythm where you inhale for a count of four , but exhale for longer count of six or eight should not feel strenuous , but rather really nourishing and very relaxing .

We will be coming into Shabana final resting pose .

And if you are doing this class in bed , you can even get under the covers at this point and get yourself really comfortable and settled .

So this is where I will be leaving you guys , see if you can give yourself a few minutes in this final resting pose , maybe just to relax every muscle in your body , starting from the crown of your head and working your way down towards your shoulders , down into your arms , down your spine , into your hips and relaxing your legs all the way down to your feet and finding a natural breath rhythm .

Thank you so very much for practicing with me and I hope you have a wonderful night's rest .