Morning Yoga for Anxiety & Overwhelm | Nervous System Care

If you woke up this morning feeling anxious, overwhelmed or maybe heavy in your body - this practice is for you. Today you'll be guided through this gentle, yet powerful and energising somatic yoga practice to soothe your nervous system and feel like yourself again. You will reconnect with your breath and create more space in the body and mind to open for another beautiful day. You are never alone. Come just as you are and enjoy :)

Transcript

If you woke up feeling a little bit low on energy, Heavy in your body, This practice will help you move that energy, Will help you connect to your body, Connect to your breath and through that create more space. More space for listening, More space for feeling, But also more space to release whatever is heavy on your heart. My name is Maria and I share a lot of somatic nervous system healing practices and how to live with less stress and more peace. So let's start. We're going to start in a seated position. So you can just sit on your mat or maybe on a pillow, On a block. I also invite you to grab a little pillow if you've got like this kind of long pillow, Amazing. If not, It's totally okay. Don't worry. Just set yourself up in this cozy space and let's just start by rolling the shoulders a few times up and down, Slightly opening your heart. We're going to take three deep cleansing breaths. On the inhale, Lifting the shoulders up to your ears and squeezing, Making fists, Holding, Creating that tension. And on the exhale, Release, Shoulders down and open your palms. Two more like this, Inhale, Creating conscious tension, Release, Squeeze, Squeeze, Squeeze. And exhale, Release and open. And one more just like that, Lifting, Engaging, Feeling that inner tension and exhale, Release. Shake your hands, Your wrists, Shake your arms a little bit as well, Your shoulders. And let's just ground ourselves for three more deep nourishing breaths. You don't have to breathe too hard or trying to breathe super deep, Just naturally creating more space on the inhale and releasing on the exhale. You are here, You are now, And that's what matters. Let's welcome this day with an open heart. Let's welcome this day with some nice open movements. So bringing hands to your heart together, Feeling that warm energy in between your hands. On the inhale, We're going to spread the arms wide, Open the chest, Exhale, We round and chin to chest, Inhale, Grow and open wide, Exhale, Close and inwards. One more time, Inhale, Open, Here you can squeeze your shoulder blades open through that upper body and exhale, Close, Inhale, This time lifting all the way up, Stretching your arms, Press through your inner palms, Lifting up to the sky, Exhale, Spread your arms around, Okay, Roll the shoulders back. And this time, Just bringing your feet down, Grounding through your feet, Keeping them a little bit wider than your hips, Pressing your hands nicely to the ground behind you and starting to drop the knees side to side, Starting with a little bit of that lower body mobility, And of course, Adding the breath on the inhale, We lift, On the exhale, We drop to the side, And you can also twist your neck, Your head to the opposite direction. Nice, Just inviting a little bit more of that nice energy flow. We're going to add a little twist as well, So as your knees go to the right, As your right knee drops down, With your left arm, Stretch forward and then maybe even behind you, So like all the way to your right, Inhale, Center, Ground the hand, Turn your legs to the left, And now your right arm reaching through the front and behind you to the back. Inhale, Center. Let's just do it two more on each side, Noticing how this feels in your body, Especially here Inhale through your upper back, Through your torso, And one more, And coming back up, Take a moment to shake your calves, To shake your thighs, And this time, Let's start lifting, So make sure your hands are grounded, Fingers are pointing forward, Pressing through the feet. Inhale, We're going to lift the hips off the mat, Squeeze your glutes, And you can look up, Exhale, We slowly lower, Round your back, Two more like this, Inhale, We lift, And we open, Squeeze, Exhale, Rounding down, Last one, Inhale, Lift, This time hold here, Maybe you want to even look to the back, Really open yourself to life, To this day, And exhale, Grounding down, And just take here a moment now to hug your knees, You can keep your knees separate, Just lowering your head, Lengthening through the back of your neck, And through this gentle self-hug, Just reminding yourself, I am here, I am here for you, I am listening, I am present, Inhale, This time we lift the arms all the way up, Exhale, Let's twist behind the right shoulder, Inhale, Just come slightly more to the centre, And exhale, Deep in the twist, Inhale, Back all the way up, Exhale, Twist behind the left shoulder, Inhale, Slightly bring your head just to centre, Exhale, Fully deep in the twist, Inhale, Come back all the way up, And this time, Just a second, Stretch your legs in front of you, Keeping them straight, Moving your ankles, Your toes a little bit, And we are going to do three releasing breaths with upper body movements, So inhale, We lift, Keeping the toes flexed, Exhale, All the way down, Wherever you can reach, Try not to force it too much again, Try to keep that lengthening and extension of the spine, And again, Inhale, We lift, Exhale, All the way down, Release, And one more, Inhale, Lift, Exhale, Release, This time let your hands stay wherever they are, And just lowering through your belly, Ribs and chest, Maybe here you wanna grab that pillow for a little bit of a support, Maybe grounding your forehead, Or just your hands, Taking three breaths, Relax your shoulders, You are safe here, Maybe your mat can be your safe space, And then inhale, We slowly lift again, Ok, Shake off the legs, Bring the hands behind you, Just open, Pointing the toes, And from here, Let's move on, Hands and knees, So grounding through your hands, Pressing them down, Grounding the toes, The knees, And starting with our spinal flow, So on the inhale, Just arch the back, You can move your body weight more forward, On the exhale, We go to child's pose, Inhale, We open, Notice that front stretch, That opening, And then as you go back, Feeling the stretch of your lower back, Of your spine, Just moving freely here, Most of the time we get so overwhelmed because of the mind, Because of the mind is going too much to the future, Is worried about the future, Scared, So instead of that, One of the things I really like to do is just reminding myself everything, I'm just going to take one step at a time, One step at a time and one breath at a time, There is no need to rush, No need to know already everything I don't have to know, Just every little step, Every breath, And every day at a time, And the next time as you go back, We're going to lift the hips and just do a little quick downward dog stretch, Downward dog is so so amazing, In the morning, It's like stretching this whole back line of the body, Drop your chest towards your thighs, Exploring this downward dog if you want, Bending the knees a bit deeper and extending them, Holding here for one more full breath, Feeling that extension, And then bending the knees, Lowering down, And this time try not to touch the floor, Just hover the knees on top of the mat, Holding there, We're going to engage the core a little bit, So let's hold and engage, Trying to keep your spine neutral, So not arching the back, Not rounding the back, But keeping it pretty neutral here, Let's hold for 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, Lower the knees, Lower all the way, Bending now the elbows, Let's slide down onto your belly, Keeping the hands close to your chest, Elbows to the back, Inhale, Let's open to our cobra or just like a mini cobra, Slightly lifting your chest off the mat, Exhale, We round down and forehead down, Two more like this, Inhale, Squeeze your glutes and open, Exhale, We lower and one more, Inhale, Open, Press, Maybe you can lift just a little bit more now, Shoulders down, Relax, And exhale, Lower onto your belly, And this time we're going to move the arms all the way to the back, Interlace them onto your glutes, Okay, Relaxing, Staying there, Start pulling the shoulders down already, Engage the glutes, And slowly we're going to lift the chest off the mat, So let's lift, Okay, This is a little bit of a challenge, But so good for your upper body, Let's lift, Lift, Lift, Engage, Open, Exhale down, Forehead down, Hands close to you, Press yourself up, Let's land in child's pose, You can keep your knees wide open or knees together, Maybe a little bit of movement with your hips side to side, And just taking three deep grounding breaths, Feeling that energy pulsating through you, You are here, You are alive, Beautiful, And after your next exhale, This time we're going to bring your hands closer to your face, Press them as you sit on your heels, And we're going to lift all the way up onto your knees, Just fast, Tuck your toes, Hands onto your lower back, Just pressing the elbows to the back, On the inhale, We're going to push the hips forward as you open the chest, So that supports the camel pose, Ustrasana, Open, Exhale just for a second, Bring yourself to the center, One more like that, Inhale, Open, Engage the glutes, Keep yourself open, Elevate that heart, Exhale, Come to the center, Bringing your hands on the back of your neck, Elbows in, Chin to chest, Just stay here, Two more breaths, Just a little counter stretch for your neck, For your upper back, One more full breath in, And exhale out, Okay, And from here we are going to slowly lift up, So all the way up to standing, We are meeting now in this standing position, And we're just going to do a few nice movements to really start moving this prana, This vital force, This energy, All alongside the body, All through our blood flow, So we're just going to stand a bit wider with your feet, Wider than the hips, On the inhale, We stretch the arms all the way up, Exhale, We're turning the palms down, Separating the elbows and pressing down, Two more like that, Inhale, We'll lift and lengthen, Exhale, Release, And one more, Inhale, Lift, Exhale down, This time inhale, We'll lift to the center, Interlace the fingers and lift, Exhale, Just slight stretch to one of your sides, Trying to keep moving those arms more to the back and to the side, And open for the rib cage, Inhale, Center, Lift, Exhale, Over side, Press and open for that side body, Inhale, Center, Exhale, Release one arm, Just with your right arm over to the left, Length, Inhale, Center, Exhale, Lift, Keep stretching and reaching, And all the way back up, Exhale, Bringing hands together, And we're going to just shake all of your legs a little bit, Shake all of your arms, Even your head as well if you want to, Shaking off that heaviness from the head, And a little bit of twisting, Some nice somatic movements, So start with your feet, Maybe one foot, One heel is lifting as you're turning the body to the other side, Okay, So we start as you start twisting through the leg and the hip, Notice that your upper body is also joining, Okay, And then maybe we add some strong breath, The arms are pretty heavy here, So maybe they're just wrapping around your body, They are free, And adding a breath in through the center, Out, Keep doing that, Just two more, Good, And now maybe your legs just come to the center, But your upper body can still move a little bit, This is such a nice movement for the spine, So good in the morning especially, And then let everything slowly come back, Stand still just for a few seconds, Noticing that energy alongside your body, In your heart, In your lungs, You're alive, You're awake, How amazing is that, Okay, And from here just stand alongside the mat or wherever you're standing, Just make sure you've got a space from the front and the back, And we're just going to stand pretty soft on the knees, And the arms will be going up and back, Okay, So one arm is always going to the back, The other one forward, We're just using that momentum to add a twist, If you want to add a twist, You can look towards the back hand and again in through the center, Exhale, So here I invite you to either just take short exhales or one inhale through the side and exhale on the left, So in on the right, Out on the left, As we breathe in on the right, We're activating that more solar energy, The young energy that will help us feel a little bit more motivated, Clear in the mind, And just fall more, Keep going, Let yourself move freely, Following your body, And again slow down the breath, Come to the center with the legs, With your gaze, And maybe only the arms are still moving, Just forward and back, And just let them slow down again, Bringing them all the way down, Shaking off, Coming to your tadasana, Standing mountain pose, And feel that blood flow now around your shoulders, Around your upper body, And maybe taking three deep cleansing breaths, Beautiful, And then here we're just going to bend the knees, Go to like a little high squat, Hands onto your thighs, And just a few rounds of lower back cat and cow, So now we don't focus lots on the upper body, We just feel that elbow curling in and then out, Okay, We're going to curl it in and then move it out, And just connecting to your grounding space now, And maybe adding some circles, Okay, Maybe some circles with your pelvis here, While staying pretty low on your knees, Just activating a little bit through that lower body and through your pelvic floor, Then slowly coming, Lifting up, Stand a little bit wider, This time with your legs really wide open, Inhale, Stretching the arms, Exhale, Lower, Trying to keep the body straight, The spine straight, And lowering your hands, Going to our wide-legged forward fold, Staying here and just relaxing, Three deep breaths, And then slowly lifting halfway up, Walk the feet a bit closer to you, And then you can lower on one knee and the other knee, And sitting back onto your heels, Or maybe just sitting how we started onto your sit bones, And we're going to bring a pillow for a second, Okay, So using that pillow first next to you, We're just going to lie down onto your back, Bending the knees close, And a little bit of movement side to side, Massaging your lower back, Feel your lower back, Giving yourself this beautiful, And hands underneath your legs, Just lifting them all the way up to the sky, Press your feet, Press your heels, Activate just a little bit, Then release, Keeping the legs pretty soft, Shake them off, Maybe shaking your arms, Your calves, Your thighs, Then bring them down, Press the feet, And we're now going to lift the hips, Just placing the pillow underneath the lower back and the glutes, So your pelvis is supported here, Just landing down to this supported bridge pose, And you can keep your knees separate, Or you can also bring them together to make it a bit more restorative, Just stay here, Feeling that support, Just reminding yourself that you're never, Never alone, Even if you think that you are truly never alone, The universe is always supporting you, The earth is always here for you, The loved ones, People really care, Even if sometimes they don't show it, And God, God is always here, And we are going to slowly release, So just bring the arms alongside the body, Press the feet, Start lifting the hips, Try to squeeze the glutes, Just pause for a second, And then bringing the pillow out, Ground yourself again, Maybe this time bringing the knees separate, Closer to you, We're going to move on to your right side, Take a moment to thank the elf, And then slowly we're pressing up, If you want to go to your shavasana, Of course, You're very welcome to, I've got lots of meditations on here as well for shavasana, But we are just going to finish together with a little pillow hug, Or if you don't have that pillow, Just imagine you have one, And just hugging it simply, Giving this pillow a big hug, Close to your chest, Close to your heart, This is such a nice and soothing gesture for your nervous system, It's like really reminding you that you, You are held, You are supported, Feeling the texture of the pillow, Just breathing deeply, Soothing yourself here, Remembering that it's totally normal that life gets overwhelming, And it's totally normal that sometimes you wake up with a little bit lower or heavier energy, It all comes and goes, But what never changes, It's that space of awareness within, That space of peace and deep, Deep inner awareness, So let yourself be guided by this energy of peace today, I hope you're feeling a little bit lighter, A little bit more open to life, And let's just finish together, You can stay with the pillow, Feel free to make this practice as long as you wish to, Inhale, Stretching the arms all the way up, And exhale, Hands to heart, Namaste, Thank you so much for connecting, And I'm wishing you a beautiful, Beautiful day, Full of blessings and peace.