Yoga For Cortisol Reduction [Soothing Vocal Guidance]

A 20 minute Yoga for Cortisol Reduction, guided entirely by soothing voice. This audio was originally created as a video sequence. Because the vocal cues are intentionally gentle, soft-spoken, & detailed, I have made it available here as a pure, audio-only experience with no background music. There is no need to look at the screen. Simply close your eyes, stay on the mat, & let the soothing ASMR-like quality of the guidance hold space for your practice.

Transcript

Hey y'all, Nico here. Welcome back to my channel. And if you're new here, Thanks for joining me. I'm Nico. Today's practice is a yoga for cortisol reduction. Cortisol is the stress hormone in your body. And so we're just going to use this practice to lower our stress hormones. So let's go ahead and get started. We'll start in a comfortable seat. We'll place one hand on the heart and one hand on the belly as we do some deep breath. So close your eyes or lower your gaze to the floor. We'll take a deep inhale through the nose. Feel the chest. Expand the belly. And exhale out the mouth. Empty the belly, Empty the chest. Good. Inhale. And exhale. Inhale, And exhale. Do a couple more rounds on your own. Good. Come back to your natural breath. See if you can find a steady breath in and out of the nose to use for the rest of the practice. Let's release the hands here, Resting them on the knees or the legs. And we'll do some seated cat-cow. So take an inhale, Roll the shoulders back, Arch the spine, Lift the chin. Exhale, Round the spine, Press the shoulders forward, Bring the chin down to the chest. Inhale, Arch. Exhale, Round. Inhale arch. Excel realm. Good, A couple more rounds on your own. Good. Come back to a neutral spine. Take an inhale, Sweep the arms up overhead. Interlace the fingers, Press the palms away. Exhale twist to your right side, Left hand outside of right knee. Right fingertips rest behind you looking to the right or over the right shoulder. Make sure you are sitting nice and tall like a string is pulling you up through the crown of your head. Good, Let's take an inhale, Come to the center again. Interlace the fingers, Press the palms away. Exhale, Twist to the left. Right hand outside of left knee, Left fingertips rest behind you. Looking to the left or over the left shoulder. Still sitting tall here. Good. Let's find a flow. Inhale, Center. Reaching up, Breathing up. Exhale, Twist to the right. Inhale, Center. Exhale, Lift. Inhale, Center. Exhale, Right. Inhale, Center. Exhale, Lift. Good, Inhale, Center again. Interlace the fingers, Press the palms away. Exhale, Release the hands. Let's do some neck rolls here. So start to rotate your head to the right side. Inhaling back. And exhaling forward, Thinking about drawing a circle with your chin. Inhale back. And exhale forward. Moving at a nice steady pace, Taking your time here. Good, A couple more times to the right. And we'll switch directions moving to the left. You can help it. Exhale forward. Good. Move with your breath. Couple more rounds. And bring your head back to a neutral position again. We'll make our way up to hands and knees. Bringing our big toes together and our knees wide, We'll float the hips back towards the heels, Extend the arms forward. Melt your heart down towards your mat. Good, Remember you can place a couple pillows underneath your hips or keep your hips lifted if it's difficult to sit all the way back on the heels. And we'll just rest down in our child's pose. Forehead, Chin, Or cheek can rest on the mat. Reestablishing that steady breath in and out of the nose if you've lost it. Good, Close your eyes and breathe here. Imbalasana, Child's Pose. Good, Let's take one more breath in Balasana. Let's shift our weight forward. Coming to hands and knees. We'll take this right foot and step it up in between the hands. Align your right knee over your ankle and bring both hands onto your right knee as you come up to this low lunge. Good, Just resting those hands on the knee. Roll those shoulders down and back. Good. Take an inhale. Exhale release the hands down on either side of their front foot. Lower your right knee down to the ground. We'll come to pigeon pose. So you can either have that right shin parallel with the top edge of your mat, If that works for your flexibility, Or you can have a deeper bend in your knee where your shin is more diagonal. That's perfectly fine. We'll start to extend this left leg back. Staying square on top of the hips, So not sinking down to either side. We're nice and square on the hips. Feel free to place a pillow underneath the hips if it's difficult to get into this position. Or you can come to a seated version with your left foot resting on the ground and your knee bent and your right ankle resting on top of your left knee for like a seated figure four. That works fine too. And we'll start upright here in our pigeon pose, So roll those shoulders back. Chin parallel to the floor to start. Inhale. Exhale if it feels okay you can lower down so the forearms or you can stack the fists and let the forehead rest down or stack the hands and let the head rest down here in pigeon pose be here for. Sometimes I'll just make sure. That you are in the best version. Of your pigeon pose. And remember that seated pigeon position is also just fine, That's seated figure four. Remember to use that deep breath in and out of the nose, That steady breath rather, In and out of the nose. Good, We'll take a couple more breaths in our pigeon pose. And let's start to make our way back up. To a table position, So you can just come back up on the hands, Roll onto the right hip as you slide the left knee up and come back up to table. Just take a moment here in your table. Position. Maybe see the difference between your left side and your right side right now. So. . . Let's step the left foot up in between the hands now. Left knee aligned over the ankle. You can bring both hands to rest on top of that left knee. Roll those shoulders back. Good. Pressing down through the ball and the heel of that front foot for this modified version of Anjaneyasana, Low Lunge. Take a inhale. Exhale, Bring those hands down on either side of that left foot. Start to lower that left knee down to the mat. Either bringing that shin parallel with the top edge of the mat or having a deeper bend in that left knee. As you start to extend that right leg back, Remember you have the option for your seated pigeon too. I'm gonna start by rolling the shoulders back nice and open through the chest, Chin parallel to the floor. Inhale, Exhale, You can lower down, Stacking the fists or stacking the hands. Through. Okay. Good. Just surrender to your pigeon pose. Let yourself relax. Let's take a couple more breaths in our pigeon pose. Inhale, Exhale, Coming back up on the hands. Roll onto the left hip. Good, This time extend the legs forward. Actually bring your feet flat onto the mat. And we'll make our way down to our back. Or scooting your hips close to your heels. Come down to your back and just hug your knees into your chest. Rock side to side. Good. Let's release the knees and float them up over the hips, So bringing them to a 90-degree angle. We'll cross the left leg over the right leg, And we'll bring our arms out wide. Feel free to cactus the elbows, So just bending at the elbows, Palms facing up, And we'll let both knees fall. To the right side. Good. Looking up at the ceiling or over to the left. If you want to deepen the stretch, You can look over to the left. Just trying to get those knees as close to the ground as possible. And you could place a pillow underneath the knees if you need to, Or underneath the shoulder if you need. Go. Let's take a inhale. Exhale, Come back to center. Uncross those legs and float the knees back over the hips in a 90 degree angle. This time, Let's cross the right leg over left. And let both knees fall to the left. Looking up to the ceiling or over to the right. Re-establish that breath if you've lost it. That breath in and out of the nose. Couple more breaths on this side. Inhale exhale, Unravel the legs, Come back to center. Hug your knees into your chest. Inhale, Hold. Squeeze yourself into a ball. Exhale, Release the Savasana. Feet reach towards the bottom corners of your mat. Arms rest at your sides, Palms facing upward. And feel free to place a hand on the heart and a hand on the belly again. We're going to come back to some nice deep breathing. So just have your natural breath to start as we settle back into our Shavasana or as we settle into Shavasana now rather. Take a deep inhale through the nose, Feel the chest rise and the belly expand. Exhale at the mouth. See if you can make your exhales longer than your inhales. Take an inhale. And exhale. Continue with a few more rounds of breath, Making your exhales longer than your inhales. Good, Take one more deep breath. And return to the natural breath again. And if you'd like to stay here for longer, I invite you to pause this practice now. Otherwise, Begin to wiggle your fingers and toes coming back into the body and back into the room. Now your next inhale. Roll to your favorite side using your arm as a pillow. Let's take a moment here to reflect on your practice and to extend gratitude towards yourself for this act of self-care and self-love today. On our next inhale, Let's make our way up to a comfortable seat once again. Together, We'll sweep the arms up overhead. Inhale, Let the hands meet. Exhale, Fold them down to heart center. Namaste.