How Yoga Can Help Improve Your Sleep
Lack of sleep can be detrimental to your overall quality of life. Inadequate sleep can interfere with your daily functioning, from energy, concentration, and productivity, to cognitive and cardiovascular health. Luckily, yoga can help you get the restful sleep you need. With its unique combination of breathing exercises, postures, and meditation, this tranquil practice can promote relaxation, improve sleep, and increase overall well being.
Yoga postures, or asanas, help promote relaxation, reduce stress, and increase fatigue. Stretching your muscles helps to—calm the body and mind, allowing for a more restful sleep. Asana can also renew energy levels, improve circulation, and alleviate pain and stiffness that all interfere with sleep.
In addition to the physical poses, breathing and meditation exercises in yoga can help to calm your body and quiet your mind. This combination of movements lets you relax and let go of the stress and tension that often keeps you up at night. When combined with guided meditation, yoga can further promote an environment of relaxation that helps the body and mind rest.
The Benefits of Yoga for Sleep and Well-Being
Yoga teaches you to pay attention to your internal state, which helps to identify and address physical, emotional, and mental imbalances––all important steps to gaining a restful night’s sleep and improving overall well-being. By providing a connection to your body and its needs, yoga can help you to break poor sleep cycle and restore healthful sleeping habits.
By introducing a regular yoga practice you can help to regulate hormones and control pain, depression, and anxiety. With its focus on the breath, yoga can teach you healthy respiratory habits, and the relaxation techniques can help diminish the sense of distress or agitation that many people struggle with at bedtime.
Ways To Incorporate Yoga Into Your Bedtime Routine
The best way to use yoga to improve your sleep is by establishing a regular bedtime routine and including various types of yoga practices. Some exercises that can easily be incorporated in pre-bed yoga practice are:
Pranayama – Pranayama techniques like Udgeet, Nadi Shodhana, or Ujjai breath help to calm the nervous system and quiets the mind.
Yoga Nidra – This guided relaxation practice quiets the mind and helps create a deep state of relaxation throughout the body, allowing it to rest.
Restorative yoga postures – Reclined and seated forward bends, twists, or supported backbends can be more calming and help to prepare your body for sleep.
A List of Suggested Bedtime Yoga Poses
- Legs up the wall
- Supported bridge
- Reclined spinal twist
- Childs pose
- Cat/Cow
- Supine pigeon
Conclusion
Whether you are new to yoga or already have an established practice, yoga can be a wonderful way to help relax, reduce stress, and gain a restful night’s sleep. So take some time to make yoga a part of your daily routine and see what a great difference it will make in your life.