Restorative Yoga for Exhaustion Session We're going to begin by lying on our backs and taking several deep breaths into our belly.
After our breathing practice,
We'll do a very grounding restorative yoga sequence with a couple of postures to help you ground the body and mind and recharge your energy.
Find a comfortable position to lie down on your back.
Feel the entire back body against the earth.
You can place your hands on your belly and as your belly rises,
Feel your hands move up with your belly and as your belly relaxes,
The hands move back down with your belly.
Take several rounds of deep abdominal breathing to activate your relaxation response.
Expanding the abdomen as you inhale and feeling your abdomen deflate as you breathe out.
Set the intention to recharge and renew yourself to take good care of yourself.
And when you're ready,
We'll begin our gentle restorative yoga sequence.
Begin to bend your knees about hip distance apart and grab a hold of your knees with both hands,
Bringing knees to chest.
On your next exhale,
Drop the knees over to the left in an easy posture recline twist.
With your knees over to the left,
Begin to extend your arms out to the side in a gentle T position and we'll hold this for five deep breaths.
With each deep breath in,
Feel the belly and heart expand and with each breath out,
Let your shoulders grow a little bit heavier.
Back body releases onto the earth.
On your next inhale,
Bring both knees back to center and release your knees over to the right for this easy supine twist on your back.
Hands can float out to the side.
Take several deep breaths,
Expanding your abdomen and rib cage.
Feel everything relax as you breathe out.
On your next inhale,
Bring both knees back to center and give yourself a gentle hug.
Once more,
Making little circles on your low back,
Begin to roll the knees around several times and then take the knees in the other direction,
Giving some gentle attention to your lower back.
Let's roll onto our side for an embryo or fetal position.
Spend a moment here feeling the earth underneath your body once more in this calming and safe posture.
When you're ready,
We'll slowly press up and we'll prepare for child's pose.
Child's pose can be done with or without a prop such as a bolster or a pillow.
Bring yourself to tabletop and then if you have your prop,
You can place it out vertically in front of your body,
Taking your two knees on either side of the prop.
Begin to fold forward in child's pose or balasana.
Hips go towards your heels.
We'll stay here for a couple of minutes,
Breathing into the back of your body.
Feel that with each breath out,
You can surrender the weight of your body into the floor.
As you breathe in,
Expand your low back to either side of the room and as you breathe out,
Feel your low back settle.
Continue moving the breath up into your back ribs.
Everything relaxes towards your midline as you breathe out.
Lastly,
Send the breath all the way up behind your shoulder blades,
Expanding the space between your blades.
Exhale.
Everything softens.
Everything relaxes.
Child's pose is a great posture to do anytime you feel tired,
Overwhelmed,
Anxious,
Or perhaps if you ever have trouble sleeping.
It is a grounding posture,
Going inwards towards ourselves.
Let's start to deepen our breath,
Coming gently out of child's pose balasana,
Back to tabletop.
Extend one leg behind you,
Opening up your hip flexor in the back of the knee.
Take three deep breaths here,
Feeling the openness in your thigh.
And when you're ready,
Let's change sides.
Extend your opposite leg out behind you.
Take three full deep breaths into the hip,
Back of the knee,
All the way to your heel and toes,
And begin to gently prepare for final relaxation.
Placing a pillow or bolster underneath your thighs or backs of the knees,
Become once more as comfortable as possible,
Safe,
Feeling the support of the floor underneath you.
I invite you to stay here as long as you'd like,
Relaxing every part of the body,
From the top of your head to the bottoms of your feet.
Give yourself permission to rest deeply and recharge your energy with gratitude.
Namaste.
