15-Minute Nighttime Yoga Routine For a Blissful Sleep
I don’t need to tell you how important a good night’s sleep is for your body and mind. Chances are, you’ve had enough personal experience to know how tossing and turning all night leaves you feeling the next day. Throw in any fun hormonal fluctuations and you’ll really feel the effects. I’m right there with you. So, from me to you, I created a 15-minute nighttime yoga routine for a blissful sleep.
Benefits of a Nighttime Yoga Routine
As we move through our busy days, we often function on autopilot. We feel we need to solve all the problems right away. We move from one errand or meeting to the next, sometimes collapsing into bed. Even if you do your best to find mini moments in your day to breathe and take time for you, they are likely sandwiched between appointments. This doesn’t leave time to pause to consider the happenings of the day— to acknowledge and address them and put them away. The result is a restless sleep… sometimes with your mind still racing.
Yoga means “union”. It is the practice of finding a union between your breath and asanas. The yin and the yang. The hold and the release.
The beauty of practicing yoga is that there is no room for thoughts— only intentions, space and a gaze-less focus (also called “Drishti”). When there’s space for your spirit to be free, those thoughts tend to disappear. You’ll feel a weight lift off your shoulders and your body will start to relax.
Holding and breathing through the asanas in a nighttime yoga routine have many relaxing, beneficial effects:
Decreases blood pressure
Releases toxins built up in your muscles and soft tissues
Improves digestion
Calms and soothes the sympathetic nervous system
Relaxes your muscles
Lengthens and realigns the spine
Slows down breathing for a sound sleep
Prepare to Wind Down
Preparing for your nighttime yoga routine is easy.
Here’s what you’ll need:
A dimly-lit, quiet space in your bedroom or other room in your house away from foot traffic, pets or noise
A carpeted floor, soft blanket or your yoga mat
To kick it up a notch, add:
Relaxing music
A candle or essential oil diffuser with warming, calming scents such as sandalwood, clove, vetiver or lavender.
Soaking in a hot bath with Epsom salt and following up with this heavenly body oil by Keys Soulcare will help to ease physical stress while calming your mind.
15-Minute Nighttime Yoga Routine
Practice these asanas, breathing and meditation moments as the last steps to your nighttime routine, just before you plan to get into bed for the night.
Begin by laying on your back on your floor, blanket or mat. If placing a pillow under the small of your back helps to relieve pressure, feel free to do so. The goal is to be comfortable so your mind can move past feeling your physical body and instead focus on your spiritual body and releasing stress.
The minutes spent with each asana or exercise are merely suggestions to stay within the 15-minute nighttime yoga routine. Feel free to adjust your time spent in each movement. For legs up the wall (Viparita Karani), try not to exceed more than 3 minutes if you’ve not practiced the asana before. While highly beneficial for your body, it can leave you feeling slightly dizzy as it increases circulation. Some yogis can hold this asana for up to 20 minutes with careful practice.
Opening meditation & breathwork (2 mins.)
Lay one hand on your belly and one over your heart. Take a deep breath in, fill your lungs, hold it for a count of 5-4-3-2-1. Release slowly through your nose and top of your throat. Empty your lungs completely. Repeat five times.
As you practice your breath, begin to clear your mind of the day. Scan your physical body. Pain or discomfort will detract from a clear mind. Start with the crown of your head. How does it feel? Continue down through your shoulders, chest, belly, abdomen all the way down to your toes. Notice any tense muscles? Pause there and perhaps readjust your spine or joints to relieve the pressure.
Next, turn your focus to your mind itself: are you full of thoughts? If so, acknowledge their existence and then say goodbye to them as you close the door on them— they aren’t useful to you right now. At this moment, it is time to shut down.
As your mind clears, allow yourself to sink into yourself. Feel your breathing, feel your heart, enjoy the open space in your mind for restfulness.
If a thought pops into your head, make a conscious effort to put it away. You can control your thoughts.
If there is an intention you would like to set for yourself as a way to close out your day, now is the time to do so. Examples could be “I am enough”, “I am relaxed”, “I am good enough”, “I am full of love”. Maybe encouraging a blissful sleep could bring an intention such as “I am sleepy”!
2. Happy Baby or Ananda Balasana (2 mins)
From your back, bend your knees and bring them to your chest. Wrap your arms around your knees and give yourself a little hug. Keeping your knees bent, reach for your big toes with your peace fingers and thumb.
Now, push the soles of your feet toward the ceiling. Knees can come close to your chest or further away depending on your flexibility.
Happy baby will help to open your hip flexors and allow energy to flow through your root chakra. Rock side to side to release pressure on and realign the lower spine.
3. Neck rolls and shoulder stretches (2 mins)
From happy baby, begin to rock to and fro to bring yourself to a comfortable, seated position at the top of your mat or blanket. Close your eyes and place the backs of your hands on your knees with palms facing open to the sky. Hands can be placed in a mudra here, if you’d like.
Drop your chin to your chest and relax your shoulders. Roll your right ear to your right shoulder, back to center and then your left ear to left shoulder. Repeat as many times as you’d like.
Release your clasped hands and bring your right arm over chest. Use your left arm to create a bind to gently stretch your right shoulder joint. Hold for a few breaths. Repeat on the right side.
Reach your arms overhead and clasp the fingers together and flip your hands upside down so palms are to the sky. Stretch to your right side to open the left side body. Return to center. Stretch upward to the sky. Stretch to the left side to open your right side body. Repeat 4 times on each side.
Return the backs of your hands to your knees and palms to the sky or in your mudra. Breathe deeply here for a few moments to enjoy the release of stress in your neck and shoulders.Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
4. Cat Cow or Bitilasana Marjaryasana
Find your way to a tabletop position. Hands should be placed under shoulders, knees under hips. Inhale deeply as you pull your core in and round your back up toward the sky, as a cat on a fence would do.
Hence, this is cat pose.
Exhale deeply as you drop your belly and present your heart and throat to the sky as a cow mooing would do.
Flow between cat and cow while inhaling and exhaling, respectively. Repeat for 10 breaths.
5. Child’s Pose or Balasana (2 mins)
From table, allow your hips to push back sot hat your seat rests on your heels.
Drop your chest and forehead to the floor.
Stretch arms out in front of you, toward the top of your mat or blanket.
Feel free to adjust how deeply you open your hips and belly by opting for a wide-legged version of Balasana.
To do so, instead of your seat resting on your heels, bring your legs out about hip-width distance so that your seat touches the floor. Breathe deeply here for as long as you’d like.
6. Legs Up the Wall or Viparita Karani (Up to 3 mins.)
Return to table position.
If you’d like, take a few more cat cows.
Find your way to your back.
Vipartia Karani can be achieved with or without the assistance of a wall. If you would prefer to use a wall, find a place without items on the wall above you. Face the wall and return to your back. Bring your seat as close to the wall baseboard as you can so that your legs are at a 90* angle from your hips.
Your feet should be flexed and soles to the sky. Arms should remain to your sides or outstretched. You can also place your hands over your belly and heart as you did in the beginning.
If not using a wall, you may feel the need to place a soft rolled-up blanket under the small of your back to help support and align the pelvis and lower spine as your core will be doing most of the work.
Breathe here for up to three minutes. When coming out of Viparita Karani, slowly release your legs by bending them to your chest, giving yourself a hug and rolling to one side.
Pause here for at least 30 seconds before you move away from the wall.
7. Corpse Pose or Savasana (2 mins.)
Return to where you began on the carpet, blanket or mat, finding your way to your back.
Close your eyes and allow palms to fall open to the sky and feet to fall open toward the floor. Adjust your shoulders, spine and back to make sure you feel in alignment.
If necessary, you can gently pick up the back your head with your fingertips to adjust your neck and head so that they, too, are in alignment.
Breathe in deeply. In through the nose, top of the throat, filling the lungs.
Release deeply, emptying the lungs. Repeat five times. After you’re done with the deep breaths, begin to return your breathing to normal.
When ready, bring movement back to your fingers and toes, slowly finding your way up and off the floor.
After this nighttime yoga routine, you should feel relief of tension and a busy mind. Find what works best for you as your next step in your bedtime preparations. Practicing yoga before bed may work to help you stay asleep the first time you try it. For some, it may take consistency over the course of some days to fully allow the body to shift gears, especially if you carry a great deal of stress with you or are going through a traumatic, stressful time in your life. Regardless of how it works for you, you will notice the benefits and your body— and bed— will thank you.
Namasté,
Jen
