Hello,
This is Reena from Reena Davis Wellness,
And this is a short yoga practice aimed to lift depressive symptoms.
A word about depression before we start,
Though.
If you're having very low mood,
Loss of interest in things that would normally interest you or things that normally you like,
And that lasts longer than two weeks,
It's a really good idea to seek out some professional help from a licensed therapist,
Psychologist,
Family physician.
It's really important as well,
If you're having any suicidal ideation,
Suicidal thoughts,
That sort of thing,
That you contact a crisis center near you or mental health crisis center near you.
So with that said,
We're going to start this practice with a rolled up towel or blanket.
I just have a small towel here that I've rolled up into this kind of burrito shape.
And I'm going to place it about midway on my mat.
The reason I'm putting it in that location is that we want the area right at the very tips of the shoulder blades to hit this roll.
And we're going to use it to just help us open the chest.
So I'm going to lay back on that,
Adjust it to the place that is right for you.
Knees can be bent,
Particularly if you have low back issues or you can extend them out,
Whatever feels best for you.
And then we're going to just lay back.
Let the head come back.
The good thing about a rolled towel or blanket is that you can make it whatever size you need.
So if you want this to be higher up,
If you've got a bigger bend in your back,
You can do that.
If you need it smaller,
You can do that.
So you could be up quite high here,
Really lifting and bringing the head back.
Do it the way that you need it.
And we're just going to focus on taking long,
Deep breaths in this position.
I have my feet out to about mat distance apart,
Similar to what you see in corpse pose or shavasana.
Arms are out to the sides just to aid in opening up the chest.
And I'd like you to,
If you would.
Breathe in a way that it is expansive,
Meaning we're breathing so that the air is coming in deeply.
And as you do that,
You're going to think about opening the chest,
Opening the ribs and opening the stomach.
You might even,
If you like,
Place a hand on the stomach.
And feel the rise and fall.
As you exhale,
You're letting all the air out.
This is a three-part breath in yoga.
And the air goes out the same way,
Or the opposite way,
I guess you could say.
It goes from the stomach,
The rib cage,
And then the chest as you exhale.
If you're doing this particular pose on your own,
You can stay here as long as feels good for you.
Because this is a short practice,
We're going to aim to stay about two minutes today.
We've already got some of that underway,
Of course.
You might be sounding your breath using your jaya pranayama,
Your ocean sounding breath,
If that's part of your repertoire.
To engage Ujjayi,
We bring the tongue back a little bit.
So that we can make the sound of the ocean as we inhale and exhale.
That just helps us to keep focus.
We're going to take a few more breaths right here.
This should feel good,
Not painful.
Just a note about that.
If you're experiencing pain,
Adjust.
Let's do one more nice deep breath.
Inhaling deeply,
Opening the chest,
Ribs,
Belly.
Exhaling belly,
Ribs,
And chest.
And then bending the knees.
And turning to one side.
We're just going to use this top hand to come up.
And then we're going to sit in a cross leg position if that feels comfortable.
You can use that towel again to bring it underneath the hips to rise up a little bit.
And it just helps you to open the hips a little bit more when you do that.
I'm seated seated in a half lotus pose right now.
That's not necessary.
Easy seat is called this,
Which is not easy for everyone.
So you can also take the legs out in a more diamond position this way.
So whatever suits you.
Okay.
And we're just going to take some seated cat cows here.
So we're going to take the hands out,
Extend them long,
Keep long through your chest.
And we're just going to take a deep inhale as you move forward,
Opening the top part of the back,
Just where we had that roll,
And then exhale as you move back into a cat pose.
Come forward.
And exhaling back.
You can move at the pace that feels good for you.
There's a practice in kundalini yoga where you do this quite quickly.
If that's something that you enjoy moving.
Please feel free to do that.
But if it feels better to do this nice and slow,
You're doing that.
These heart openers,
As we refer to them in yoga,
Are all aimed at lifting the heart chakra,
Helping to engage some of that love,
Compassion,
Including self compassion,
Empathy,
And feeling a little happier.
Let's do one more.
And then rise back up into this seated position.
We're going to take the hands up to the shoulders right now.
And here we're going to engage a little bit of breath of fire.
We're going to go relatively slow,
But again,
I'll show you how to do it quicker if that feels good for you.
So breath of fire is a faster breath.
I have a video that is just breath of fire and alternate nostril breathing if you'd like to know more about it.
Essentially,
Though,
We're going to just be using the belly to exhale the air,
Forcefully and then sip the air back in through the nose.
We're going to turn to the right on an inhale and to the left on an exhale.
Again,
You're going to go at the pace that feels good for you.
If you have any issues in your low back,
You're maybe not going to turn quite as much.
I do have issues in my low back,
So I'm not turning a great amount.
I have a little bit of degeneration in my low spine.
If you'd like to speed it up,
Please go ahead and do that.
That's just going to look like pumping the air in the belly.
In and out.
Getting those forceful exhalations,
Sipping that air back in as we turn to the right.
I'm gonna slow that down.
If you found you got a little bit dizzy here,
That's okay.
We've got a lot of oxygen heading up towards the brain,
Making it a little bit dizzy.
Nice and slow,
Slow,
Slow.
And then you can release those hands.
You might turn the hands up on the palm.
Maybe taking this mudra.
Yanamudra that's called it's uh to help bring knowledge wisdom and just feel out.
How that pose affected you,
How that act affected you.
A little more energy,
Perhaps.
And then we're just going to take our hands down,
Adjust so that we can come up to stand.
And just move that rolled towel out of the way.
We don't need it anymore.
And come up to standing.
And you're going to stand wherever you like on your mat i'm going to stand back so you can see all of me and feet are about Sitting bone distance apart,
Sitting bones are about midway in your glutes.
Hands to the heart for a moment.
Take a nice big breath right here.
And then we're going to fold over bent knees.
Bend those knees as you fold.
You can take the hands down to the floor if that feels good.
Maybe extending one leg at a time.
I'm just gonna turn to this side so you can see my knees are bent quite a bit.
I'm gonna extend straight in my right leg.
Straight in my left leg.
You could have the hands anywhere.
Along the legs it feels appropriate for you.
And then coming back into that bend,
You could plaster your legs to your chest and then open up the chest right here.
In standing forward bend or Uttanasana.
With the hands clasped overhead.
If it feels okay for you,
You can take the heels of the hands together.
Taking this pose.
Nice deep breath.
Letting the head go.
And then release the hands again.
Bend the knees and we're going to roll up once again.
Big breath up.
And hands come to the sides in Tadasana.
I was going to turn back again.
I'm going to take the palms and place them on the low back.
Like this.
We're going to draw the elbows together firmly.
So they're drawing maybe shoulder distance apart.
Right here,
I'm going to turn the head back a little bit and think about where that roll was once again at the tips of the shoulder blades.
And we're going to start to open in that area.
So this is not so much coming out of the low back as the upper back.
Think about where the heart is,
Heart chakra is.
Where the solar plexus chakra is.
And we're thinking about opening those areas more so than the lower part of the back,
Which is already quite flexible.
Again,
You can be sounding the breath using that Ujjayi Pramiyama.
Let's take two more breaths right here.
And then lift up to straighten.
Release the hands once again.
Standing in Tadasana or Mountain Pose.
And just taking.
Feel of the breath.
Feel of how the body is after that little bit of back bending that we've just done.
We're gonna fold over once again.
Knees can be bent as much as you need to.
And then for this position,
We're going to walk the hands forward.
Into plank pose,
Lower the knees to the floor.
And then back yourself up a little bit.
We're just gonna take the front leg forward.
We're gonna stock knee right over ankle in this position and then come up.
The back knee.
Can be stopped.
Also underneath the hip.
So we're here.
You can lean in if it feels good for you,
But we're going to stay with this front knee stocked right over ankle.
Hands come to this front knee and then we're going to push in and open that chest once again.
Maybe the head comes back to open the throat.
If it feels good,
You can extend your left hand while the right hand is on the right knee.
One more breath here.
And then release that left hand down.
And we're going to just take both knees back.
And then bring the left foot forward.
I'm just gonna turn a little bit So once again,
Stocking joints over joints.
Hands come into this front knee.
If you like,
You can come in a little deeper to open the hip flexor.
You don't have to though.
You can think about pushing that hip flexor forward.
And then opening up the chest.
Dipping the head back only as far as feels good for you.
Opening chest,
Opening heart,
Opening throat and breathing.
If you're having any trouble balancing in this position,
You can widen the area between the front foot and the back knee laterally.
That'll give you a larger base to work with.
Let's do two more breaths right here.
And then we're going to come back once again.
So shift back onto the knees,
And we're going to move into a pose called Ustrasana.
Now,
In Ustrasana,
It's a big backbend.
Again,
I have some degeneration in my low discs in my back,
So I don't go into the full pose.
If you have a big backbend in your repertoire,
Please go ahead and do that.
I'm going to tell you how to do it,
But I'm not going to show you.
I don't need to be hurting myself.
So knees are coming just sitting bone distance apart once again.
Not right together,
Your feet can either be flat on the floor or lifted.
We're gonna again come really tall.
We're gonna think about pushing the hips forward.
Our hips are stacked right over knees here.
You can take the hands to the low back like we did standing with the fingers pacing down the back.
And then open right here.
Into that back bend.
If you have that deeper bend in your back,
You could be taking the hands down to the backs of the knees,
The heels.
Or to blocks on either side.
I'm gonna stay right here.
And just keep opening the back,
Breathing.
No matter where you are,
You're still thinking about keeping hips over the knees.
So don't think about going way back here.
You're staying up and getting that bend through upper back.
And then the low bow.
Two more breaths.
Untuck your toes and sit back on your heels.
And again.
Excuse me,
Just feel into the quality of your breathing right now and what it feels like to take that pose.
What changed in your body?
Your energy.
And even your mood.
And then we're going to shift over to one side.
You're gonna come down onto the back.
I'm gonna go end the end on my mat here.
Because we were just doing backbends,
I'm gonna take the right knee in.
Always good to do.
In opposing posture,
Particularly with back bends.
And then we're going to lift,
We're going to flex this heel,
Lift that leg up,
Hold behind the hamstring.
And we're going to push the leg into the hand.
Hands are pulling back.
Let the hands win.
Setting the femur,
The long bone in the thigh.
To the black plane of the body.
Holding,
Holding,
And then release it.
Just let it go for a moment.
And then do that one more time.
That femur,
The hamstring into.
Your hands,
Hands are pulling back.
And then release it.
Bring that leg down to the floor,
Other leg pulls in,
Knee bent to begin,
Into wind relieving pose.
And then it extends,
Hands behind the hamstring.
Flexing this top heel.
And then we're going to take that We're going to push the leg into the hands,
Hands,
Pull back on that leg.
Holding,
Holding.
Keep the pressure.
And then do it one more time.
Release it now.
Take the hands down to the sides of the body.
You can stay right here in Shavasana.
If you wanted to,
You could take that rolled towel back underneath the spine.
If you prefer,
You can bend the knees,
Draw the knees together so they're touching with the feet about mat distance apart,
Taking your version of Shavasana.
Take some nice deep breaths here.
Letting yourself settle into the pose,
Making micro adjustments as needed to get yourself in full comfort.
And staying here in Shavasana,
Corpse pose,
As long as feels good for you.
Thank you for joining me in this short practice.
I hope it feels good and I will see you next time.
