Easy Yoga Poses For Better Sleep

If you are having trouble falling asleep you’re not alone. According to statistics some 40 million Americans have trouble sleeping, and with our modern lifestyle, it is not surprising. That comes out to about 1 in 3 people suffering from some type of sleep disorder. Because of this problem, people spend altogether about 4 billion dollars annually to try to get a good nights sleep.

Yet will all this money spent people still are having trouble. Not even counting the side effects of taking medication. Side effects such as morning fogginess, constipation, diarrhea, difficulty keeping balance, dizziness, daytime drowsiness, and dry mouth or throat just to name a few.

So what all can you do to get a good nights sleep? Today we want to look at a pre-bedtime yoga routine to help relieve tension and allow you to relax and sleep.

The Yoga Poses for Sleep

The Hero Pose

Starting in a comfortable seated pose with your glutes resting on your heels with the tops of your feet on the floor, hero pose brings a gentle stretching action to your knees and ankles.

This pose allows lubricating fluid to flood these areas, which protects them against injury, gets rid of any cracking sounds or minor discomfort you may be feeling here, and helps them feel more loose, warm, and comfortable—without any motion required.

Take this opportunity to lengthen the spine upward, and open the chest as you find a calming breath pattern. Use your deep, even breaths to slow down your heart rate and clear your mind.

Cat and Cow Pose

From Hero pose, roll forward onto your hands and knees. For cat pose, exhale as you tilt the crown of the head and the tailbone down to the ground, arching your spine into a C-curve and pulling shoulder blades apart.

Inhale into Cow pose by bringing the crown of the head and the tailbone up toward the ceiling, hollowing out the lower back. Flow between these two poses as long as you’d like, moving with the pattern of your inhales and exhales and feeling like you’re putting space between every vertebra and loosening up your spine.

When you’re done, come back to a neutral spine in tabletop.

Legs Up The Wall Pose

You want to place your legs straight up against a wall. If you can, bring your tailbone closer to the base of the wall, perhaps even to the point where your glutes are touching the wall. This pose can be a great gentle hamstring stretch.

It also helps drain lymph and lactic acid from the legs, which helps prevent injury and decrease the symptoms of fatigue and soreness if you spend a lot of time on your feet. Let the looseness that you brought into your lower back with the figure four stretch help you feel more comfortable in this pose.

Need More Poses?

Supine Spinal Twist Pose

Transitioning to face away from the wall, bring both knees into your chest and rock back and forth. When you’re ready, bring your arms out into a ‘T’ with your hands in line with your shoulders and let your knees fall over to one side.

You can keep both knees bent, straighten the top leg, or choose to straighten both legs. If you’re not feeling as much of the twist as you’d like, it may be helpful to adjust your tailbone, bringing your glutes further over to the middle of your mat so that your back is in one straight line down the center of your mat area—this may intensify the stretch in the lower back.

Happy Baby Pose

Bringing both knees back into your chest, grasp your two big toes with the index and middle finger. Then pull the heels up to the ceiling, keeping the tailbone down on the ground.

Your knees should be pulling into your underarm area, and you can rock back and forth to gently massage the spine. This is a great pose for relieving abdominal discomfort and is a perfect final spinal relaxation pose.

Try these as your pre-bedtime routine. I have touched on just a few of them, there are many others. To see more poses for your routine for getting a great night s sleep just click on the link below.

Click Here For More Yoga Poses For Sleep