Rest For Balance

This is a soft and relaxing yoga practice to bring you back to balance. Whether you are feeling wired or tired, this practice will help bring you back to that sweet, grounded, middle place. We'll release tight muscles, slow down our breath, and relax deeply. Be sure to bring some pillows, blankets, and a mat or folded blanket to lie on. Be prepared for a deeply restful sleep afterwards! No yoga experience needed.

Transcript

Hey, It's Hannah, And welcome to your rest practice. This is a nice chill practice with a bit of a focus on kind of balancing out the body. This is gonna feel really nice if you're feeling a little bit wired or a little bit tired. All you need is your comfy clothes. And a comfortable place to lie down. The more blankets and pillows you have, The better. I hope you enjoy. So welcome to your rest practice. Find any comfortable seated position. You don't need to sit perfectly, Just sit like yourself. I'm actually going to kneel. I tend to be a kneeler. You can close your eyes. And just look down. Just feel your breath. You don't need to change it. But just notice it. Notice anywhere where you're holding and see if you can soften that. Usually. The jaw, The shoulders. Sometimes there's like a squeeze through your hips or your inner thighs. Just let that go. And before we do all the movement and the breath and blah, Blah, Blah. Just take a moment to send yourself a little thank you for carving out this time. It's so easy to put off. A class, A practice. And just do it later. That the magic isn't really just doing this practice again and again. And just continually teaching your nervous system that you're good, You're okay, You can soften. So just keep breathing like yourself. Try to breathe through your nose if you can. And we'll start by just kind of dusting off the day. So start by just flicking out your fingers. Think about taking off the day. Or anything you don't want to bring into your day if it's morning for you. And then just take that off. So imagine taking it out of your mind, Putting it in two little garbage bins beside you. Dust off your chest, Your face. Your shoulders. Or the other. Your belly, Your back, Your hips. Give everything a little dust. And this is also just helping you to bring your mind into your body. You're just feeling your body. Sweep off your feet if you can. Anywhere else that needs an extra little dust just. Do that. Just kind of starting with that. It's a fresh canvas. And we'll do some balancing breath work here. So the idea is that we're balancing the right and the left side of the body, The doing with the receiving. So we're not doing too much of either. The yin and the yang are kind of marrying at all and kind of landing in this sattvic place in the middle. So before you do anything, First just notice if there's a nostril that you're breathing out of more than the other. Tends to change throughout the day. You can even put your hand under your nose and check. And then I'm not gonna mirror you for this, So usually I mirror you, Today I'm not. Take your right hand and you can take your index and middle finger and either place it between your brows, Resting on your forehead. Or you can curl it into your hand, Whatever is the most comfortable. And that way your. . . So we'll land on your right nostril. And if you press that, You'll breathe through the left. And then your ring finger will land on your left nostril. And if you press that, You'll breathe through the right. So essentially you're playing your nose like the flute. Start with a nice easy breath in. Breathe out. And then place your thumb on your right nostril. Breathe in through your left. Switch your grip and breathe out through your right nostril. Inhale through your right nostril. Switch your grip and breathe out through your left nostril. Inhale, Lax. Switch, Exhale right. Inhale, Right. Switch. Exhale. Inhale left. Switch. Exhale, Release. Inhale, Right. Switch. Exhale. Inhale and exhale. Switch. Exhale right. Keep that going so you're inhaling, Right? Switch, Exhale left. Inhale up. Exhale. Inhale, Reach. Switch. Exhale out. Keep going. Breathe at your own pace. The next time you exhale through your left nostril. Release your hands. And just let your body breathe for you. At the very least. It feels good to breathe without a hand on your face. We'll do a little bit for our necks here. So just drop your left ear to your left shoulder. Feel the stretch through the right side of your neck. You can take a little nod here. Drop your chin to the center of your chest. And then bring your right ear to your right shoulder. Feel the stretch through the other side of your neck. Feel free to layer in your knots. And drop your chin to the center of your chest. This time you can interlace your fingers. Place them behind your head. And don't yank here, But let the weight of your hands. Just rest on your head and feel that extra little stretch through the back of your neck. Maybe even between your shoulder blades. Come up, Keep your hands where they are and just lean back, Head into your hands, Elbows wide, Heart open. Release. Give your shoulders a little roll. And then we will make our way to seated. Lean back into your hands. You can have a bend in your knees and maybe widen out your feet a little bit wider than usual. Puff your heart up here. And then lazily breathe out to drop your knees to the right. Inhale, Bring your legs to center. Exhale, Drop your knees to your left. Inhale center. This time, As you drop your legs to the right, Sweep your left arm up and over. Come back to center. Knees fall to the left, Sweep your right arm up and over. Keep that going. So you're just kind of extending that twist up. Into your upper back. Sometimes you get a nice crack through your back here. And there's no like fancy way to do this. It's just kind of whatever feels good. Full body twisty moment. And then eventually just let that go. And lie down on your back. You can have your legs bent or straight, Whatever feels good for you. Take a few breaths just to settle into the ground. Pull your right leg in. Give it a squeeze. You can always have your leg out to the side a bit more if that's more comfortable for your abdomen. Reach your right leg straight up to the ceiling. Maybe you play around, Move your foot a little bit. The next time your foot is flexed, So your heels reaching high, Keep it there and just breathe. If you want it more intense, Straighten out your left leg, So your heels on the mat. And just move your right foot over to the left a few inches. So it's not a twist, Both butt cheeks are on the floor still. But you'll feel that stretch into your IT band. So that muscle that runs from your knee to your hip, Outside of your thigh. If you're not feeling much, You can play with reaching your foot higher up. And pulling your leg a little bit closer in like your toes are trying to touch the wall behind you. Then we'll turn it into a twist. So if you want it more intense, Keep your legs straight. If you want more gentle, Bend your knees. And just pull your right leg way over to the left. Now your right butt cheek will lift up off the ground. Gaze to your left, Or sorry, Your right. Feel free to extend your right arm. Come back to center. Keep your right leg in. Place your left foot flat on the floor. And put your right ankle over your left thigh. Use your right hand to first push your right knee forward, Away from your face. We're aiming for a stretch through that outer right hip glute. Bye. If you still want more, Take a little lean to the left, Just a couple inches again, By just rolling slightly to the outer edge of your left foot. If you want, You can reach for the left thigh. The thing that tends to make this More intense. Is that knee going forward. Bring your left foot flat onto the floor. Keep your right ankle over your left thigh. Drop your hands down. And straighten out your left leg so your heel's on the mat. So you're kind of making like a number four out of your leg. If you feel a stretch through your inner hip and thigh, You can stay here. If that's too much or just doesn't feel good, Bring the outer edge of your right foot down onto the ground. Like you're doing a tree pose, Just lying down. Think of your right knee getting heavy and you'll feel a nice stretch through that. Inner Array. Hip and thigh. Place your right foot flat on the floor. Pull your left leg in. Give it a hug. Again, You can have your leg out to the side a bit more if you want more space for your abdomen. And reach your left leg straight up to the ceiling. Feel free to extend your right leg long on the mat. Maybe you play around with moving your foot, Your ankle. Maybe it cracks and pops, Or maybe that's just me. Keep your heel nice and high. And then bring your left foot over to the right just a few inches. I. T. Band stretch. A little goes a long way, Like you can barely even tell on screen here that I've moved my legs. Then we'll turn it into that twist. So maybe you bend your knee, Maybe you keep it straight. Pull your left leg way over to the right. Maybe you extend your left arm, Look away from your knee to bring this up into your neck. Come back to center. Bend your right knee. Place your left ankle over your right thigh. Maybe you push your left knee away. Maybe you lean a little to the right. Or you can pull your right thigh in. As long as you feel a stretch basically through your butt cheek, That's what we want. I have a petition going for yoga teachers to say the word butt cheek more often. No one has signed it yet. When you've had enough of that butt cheek stretch, You can. . . Straighten out your right leg. Keep your left ankle over your right thigh. If that's not your jam, Then you can bring the outer edge of your foot down onto the ground. Like more of a tree pose. Aiming for a stretch through your inner hip, Inner thigh here. When you've got enough. Bring your left foot flat onto the floor, Straighten out your legs. Maybe shake out your feet a bit. And then just pancake flip over. Onto your stomach for some tummy time. I don't know why I just said that, Sorry. You can just make a little pillow to rest your forehead or a cheek on. See if you can feel your breath into your back. You can stay here. Warm. Slide your hands under your shoulder. Itch. You can keep your elbows glued into your sides like you're a little baby grasshopper. Then inhale, Lift your head, Lift your heart. You can push into your hands here. As you breathe out, Just roll your spine back down. You can make this as dancey as you want. You can roll up real slow, Let your head go. Nice and slow. Think of just like some feel good movement here. If you didn't want to be a little grasshopper, You could bring your hands a little bit wider than your shoulders. I like to set my fingertips down. And roll up from there. Just changes it a little bit, But we're just aiming for some nice extension through the back. Putting through your heart. And just kind of rolling it out and letting all that movement move through our bodies. Nice work. And just lower down and breathe. And that's about enough movement for me today. I don't know about you. Let's sew! Come into our first restorative shape. We'll do a child's pose today for a restorative shape. If you know child's pose isn't your thing, Just keep lying on your stomach like you were just doing. That's called crocodile pose. It's giving you that same sense of grounding, Of heaviness, Of connecting to the earth. If you like child pose, Then come along. So you can put. . . Blankets or pillows under your knees, Under the tops of your feet. Under your bum, Between your heels, Doesn't matter. You can bring your knees nice and wide. Sink your hips back towards your heels. And then I like a pillow or a few pillows under my torso. You can curl your arms long, Bring the side of your head down or your forehead down. This can be comfy. Maybe you give the pillows a hug. If I'm using more than one pillow, Sometimes I like to sandwich my hands underneath them. It just feels like nice and secure. If you want it to go full. Blanket sandwich style, You could. Throw a blanket over your shoulders like it's a cape. And really just let that be nice and heavy. If this is really intense and it feels like a stretch more than a comfortable place to land, That's your sign to add more support, More pillows, More blankets. The limit does not exist when it comes to pillows, Blankets, Support in your restorative practice. I tend to avoid teaching along how child's pose. Um, In these classes, In my restorative classes in person. Because I feel like there's this idea that We should be able to do child's pose. We should be able to hold it for however long because it's called child's pose. In a lot of classes if you're If the pose isn't accessible to you, They'll say, Oh, Just do child's pose. Which yes, In theory, It's a nice thing to offer, But for a lot of us, Holding child's pose for a while isn't comfortable. I know it sounds like we should be able to do it because like, Oh, A child could do it. It's child's pose. That's not necessarily true. It's asking a lot of your ankles, Of your knees, Of your hips. And just like having all that space in your body. We don't live in a world where we're all squatting a lot or moving a lot. So this is actually kind of a tricky pose to hang out in for a while. Yes, It can be grounding, It can be relaxing, It can be so soothing, But in restorative, We hold these postures for quite a while. So if this stops feeling relaxing and nice, You don't need to stay in it. You can give yourself permission to come out of this whenever you want, And you will still have a beautiful, Full, And complete yoga practice. You don't need to hold yourself to some imaginary standard. If this feels good, Continue it. If it doesn't, Move. The main thing is that you're breathing, You're being kind to yourself. You're making your practice a nice place to come back to. Think of the nice places where you like to go, Like a nice cafe. Part of the reason why you probably like that cafe is because maybe the people remember you, They're nice to you, They treat you kindly, Maybe they smile at you. Think of your yoga practice like your little cafe that you like to go to. You wouldn't go there if the staff were terrible to you. Even if the coffee was great, If the staff made fun of you for the way you sat, You wouldn't go back. So. Don't make fun of yourself for the way you're sitting in your yoga practice. Don't let your worst enemy live between your two ears. Be kind to yourself. Let it be a nice place to land and hang out. If you have one side of your head down. Switch. Try five more breaths here. Come on up. Are you relying on your stomach or child's pose? Move around. Maybe that's some cat cows. Maybe it's something else. Okay. And we'll come into. Our next restorative shape. Bring a pillow or two or three lengthwise behind your back. Keep your bum on the floor. Your butt cheek's on the floor. And just recline down onto your pillow. Make sure your low back is comfy here. If it feels too intense. Try moving your pillows so they're more just under your shoulder blades and your head rather than right towards your low back. You can have your arms wide. Maybe your hands resting on your body. Legs can be straight, Bent, Or maybe you even play around with a butterfly pose. If you do butterfly pose. Feel free to add some. Pillows under your knees. So nice. Parallel sitting pose, Maybe hip opening if you're doing butterfly too. Balancing out that grounding. With being open. Keep breathing slowly. Come back to the present if your mind has wandered. About five more breaths here. Bring your feet together. Flat onto the floor. Roll on to one side. Then choose where you want to be for final rest. Whatever's comfy. Once you're settled, Take an easy breath in. And a long breath out. Bring your awareness to your right hand. Feel your right hand thumb. Index finger. Middle finger. Ring finger. And pinky finger. Feel your palms. And feel the back of your hands. Notice the shape your right hand is making. Any sensation in your right hand at all. Now feel your left hand. Your left thumb. Index. Your left middle finger. Ring finger. Thank you. Your palm. Back of your left hand. In your entire left hand. Feel both of your hands. Even awareness of both your right and your left hand. Feel your right foot. Your left foot. Both feet at the same time. Feel the back of your body. The front of your body. Feel your whole body, Front and back. Feel the entire right side of your body. The entire left side. Feel both sides of your body at the same time. Feel your whole body. Feel your whole body. Notice just for a moment how different your whole body feels now. Compared to an hour ago. Start to deepen your breath. Move your head. Your hands, Your feet. Make those movements bigger and bigger. Until you can take a great big stretch. Roll on to one side. And come up. To any comfortable seated position. Bring your hands somewhere meaningful for you. And send a heartfelt thank you to your body. To our yoga practices. And you. For carving out this time in your day to practice. Thank you so much for being here with me and with Chili. That was our rest practice. I hope you're feeling as chill as chilly. If you like that, There's plenty more on my page. There's audio tracks, More video tracks, And we do this class live every Saturday night. So if you liked it, I hope to see you live sometime. Thank you so much for being here and practicing with me. Take good care.