10-Minute Bedtime Yoga
Updated: Jan 21
Welcome to our 10-minute bedtime yoga practice. With our busy lives, problems and tensions, there is so much to think about. This can make sleeping a struggle. Staring at an LED screen all day just makes matters worse. Bedtime yoga is just what you need if you routinely find yourself struggling to fall asleep.
The Aim of Bedtime Yoga
This 10-minute bedtime yoga session will calm that racing mind, allow you to relax and create the right conditions for a good night’s sleep. You can do this session in bed or on the floor.
Our aim is to work gently into the body to trigger the relaxation response that is governed by the parasympathetic nervous system. This will help you relax, slowly wind down and fall asleep. By activating the relaxation response, you are also creating the right conditions for deep healing to take place within your body.
How it Works
Stress and anxiety put our body into the fight or flight mode, which is the fear response. This is a defensive mechanism of the body, which increases heart rate, breathing rate and blood pressure while slowing down digestion. You also experience an increase in thoughts, which makes your mind race. This mode is stressful and is opposite to the relaxation mode, which is essential for falling asleep.
With this 10-minute bedtime yoga practice, we will focus on the breath and the body, and slowly switch it out of the fear response and into the relaxation mode. This will have an effect that is opposite to the effects of the fight or flight response. Switching to the relaxation mode slows down our heart rate, breathing rate and reduces blood pressure. It will also improve digestion and reduce stress.
Other Things You Can Do to Sleep Better at Night
There are many other things that you can do along with the 10-minute bedtime yoga to improve your sleep. Here are a few things that I do, which helps me sleep much better.
Soaking in the bath
Reading a book
Stopping screen time well before bedtime
Massaging my head and feet
Not eating late at night
Avoiding caffeine after 3 pm
Use a Rest Easy Weighted Blanket
(Find my picture using this product)
Below are a few useful bedtime-yoga poses. Try them and Happy Sleeping!
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Do you have any sleeping tips to share, I would love to hear in the comments.
