Yin Yoga For Sleep & Deep Relaxation

One of the benefits of Yin Yoga is that it can have a really relaxing effect, so this audio session can be used to help you calm down after a hectic day or more specifically, for getting a good night’s sleep. The poses as always are long-held, giving you a chance to stress and stretch out any tension in the body as well as quieten the thoughts - ideal conditions for a night of peaceful rest.

The poses are Extended Frog/ Tadpole, Half Sphinx/Seal & Broken Wings - find images on my website (see profile).

Victoria's Yin Yoga classes are designed to release tension and bring presence to body & mind. Bring a bolster (or pillow), some blocks (or books) and a blanket. Please make sure to listen to your body during the class and if anything doesn’t feel right, come out of the pose and rest. Your body is your responsibility.

Transcript

Good evening,

Good afternoon,

Good morning,

Wherever you are.

My name's Vicki and today we're going to do a yin yoga session for sleep.

Yoga can,

For many,

Be very useful for sleep.

There was a survey done by Harvard University in the US where 55% of the participants said yoga helped them sleep better.

Since yin yoga is done largely on the floor,

You don't even necessarily need a yoga mat,

You can even do it in your bed.

You can use your yoga props of course here,

But if you do do it in bed,

You already have props there with you.

Your bed cover,

Your pillows,

Your teddy,

Your partner.

So use these things and I'll explain how to do this as we go along.

If you haven't done yin yoga before,

Then please bear in mind that one of the main elements of the practice is that we stay in the poses for around 3 or 4 minutes in general.

So please listen carefully to my adjustments.

So we're going to start by either sitting or lying down.

Spend a bit of time finding your position and adjusting yourself.

I want you to be comfortable,

But if you're sitting,

Try to be quite upright.

You can sit on the pillow for example to tilt the hips forward a little bit.

Then when you're ready,

Just close your eyes and we'll start by bringing our attention to whatever it is that we're sitting on.

So if you're sitting on a pillow or the duvet for example,

Then just notice the texture of the duvet.

How soft it is or hard.

How high up or low down you are.

Now sense where your hands are.

Sense where your feet are and feel the weight of the body on the sitting bones.

Sense any sense that are around,

Allowing them to enter your awareness.

Perhaps noting them in a very simple way.

So for example,

Person,

Bed,

Car,

Bird,

Anything that comes to your attention.

Feel it,

And then just let it be.

And it may be with those sounds that they bring some kind of feeling or emotion.

And if that's the case,

Then again just note that feeling.

Relaxed.

Irritated.

Happy.

So noting the sounds and noting any feelings that come up,

But without holding on to them.

Letting them be there,

But not grasping and noticing how everything changes from moment to moment.

No moment is the same.

Everything is transient.

Everything moves on.

Everything changes moment by moment.

And then bring your attention back to my voice.

Listening to the sound again without judging.

Just noticing.

Bring back into the body.

Once more feeling the weight of the arms and the body on the floor or on the bed.

And now we'll move into the first pose,

Extended Frog.

So first,

Move onto your hands and knees,

Then sit back on your heels like Child's Pose.

Our target areas are going to be the inside thighs and chest.

So start by separating the knees to your natural stopping point and then fold forward.

If at this point you feel like you need a bit more stretch on the inside thighs,

Then separate the knees a bit further.

If you want less,

Bring them closer together.

Now as this is Extended Frog,

Please note that the image you might have seen on my website is not extended.

Then we're simply going to bend the elbows,

Place them on the floor or on support if that's better for you and just cup the chin in the hands.

Our second target area,

As I already mentioned,

Is the chest.

So what we're doing here is opening up that area,

Which is also bringing a bit of compression in the back,

A back bend in fact,

Particularly in the upper part.

If this is okay for you and you're not feeling any pain anywhere,

Then just stay where you are.

If you'd like a bit more opening in the front or perhaps more compression in the back,

Then walk the elbows forward.

And if you'd like less,

Then of course walk them back,

Always the opposite.

You can separate the feet if that works better for you.

They don't have to be together.

And now we'll stay in this pose for around four minutes.

Keep your breath natural,

Normal.

It's always useful to pay attention to the breath in your practice.

If it seems like it's not natural,

If it's laboured or if it's fast,

Then you've gone too deep into the pose.

So just back off.

Notice where you can feel the stretch.

Bring your attention to the inside thighs,

The chest.

See if you can feel that compression in the back.

See if it's different from left to right.

See if you can notice where the sensations start and where they end.

Or does it feel like there's no start and end point?

The reason that I encourage you to do this is because in a similar way to a mindfulness meditation like the one we did at the start,

You're bringing your focus,

Your attention,

Your concentration to one particular thing.

So ultimately,

Bringing you into the present moment,

Giving you a focus so that if your attention wanders you can bring it back to something.

The bottom,

The hip is naturallyár post- medals are not individuals.

Okay,

So we're going to move out of this pose now.

So in your own way,

Being as gentle and kind to yourself as possible,

Make your way into a lying position face down on the floor or bed.

Here you can either put your head to the side and the arms by your sides or you can rest your head on your hands.

Then I bring the left knee up on the floor or bed beside you.

This can help to decompress the spine as well as being preparation for the next pose.

So I'm going to go on the whole opposite side to the security part and we'll be cherish this opportunity.

Now keep the knee where it is but go up onto the elbows so that the chest is raised into a kind of half sphinx.

Now you can have the hands on the floor here or you can have the palms together.

You can play with the positioning of the elbows,

Moving them closer to the body or further away.

It doesn't matter if the shoulders come up and shrug towards the ears,

In a yin yoga pose that's absolutely fine.

So what we're doing here is opening up the front of the body.

Again,

This means that there will be compression in the back as well.

We want this.

However,

If that compression is in one particular point and is pinching the lower back for instance,

Then try moving the straight leg a bit more to the right or perhaps the left.

You can try moving the position of the bent leg too.

If you find that neither of these things are working,

Then you might want to come down a degree.

Perhaps moving the arms away from you or from each other so that the body drops a bit lower down.

You can even come down to the ground completely if you want.

Now if you want to go higher,

Then grab a prop like a pillow or a cushion and put your elbows on it to raise yourself up that bit more.

Perhaps it might even suit you more to actually go up onto the hands,

A kind of half seal,

But just make sure that you are relaxed.

And now we're going to stay here for another three minutes.

Close your eyes and notice the breath.

Notice any sensations,

Physical or emotional.

And then we'll be noting again like we did at the start.

Notice right up here.

Notice right here.

In Yin Yoga it's always useful to move into the pose,

Find your natural stopping point,

Then adjust the body so that you feel a mild to moderate sensation that you can stay in for a number of minutes.

And if you find after a while that it either gets too intense or maybe you lose the sensation,

Very common,

Then adjust the body.

Just do it with attention,

Really noticing any movements you make instead of doing them automatically.

Okay.

You Okay,

So let's go down If you've got any props move them away And bring the body gently down but leave the knee where it is for now And just notice how the back feels for around 30 seconds or so Now bring that knee down and just lie on your front Noticing how the left and right sides might vary or not again particularly in the lower back Now staying in this face down position bring the right knee up on the floor or bed next to you Stay here again for a few moments and then we'll go up on the elbows again So as before play with the pose on this side bearing in mind how different it may be here Play with the arms separating them moving them closer or further away And propping the elbows on something if you wish or going up onto the hands for half seal Also play with the position of the legs if there's anything going on in the back or the hips or the pelvis that doesn't feel right Okay,

So we'll stay on this side now for around four minutes close the eyes and feel the sensations And then we'll go up onto the elbows again And then we'll go up onto the hips And then we'll go up onto the elbows And then we'll go up onto the hips And then we'll go up onto the elbows The reason we're faking on the inside thousand chest today is because we're stimulating what's called the liver meridian in traditional Chinese medicine A meridian is a channel through which energy or qi flows And in China it's said that sleep issues can be caused by an imbalance to the flow of qi through this meridian The liver is one of 12 major meridians and all of these have different times for when they work the hardest For the liver meridian it's between one and three in the morning So if one of your issues is waking early in the morning and finding it difficult to get back to sleep It's possible that there could be an imbalance in the liver meridian Of course I'm not a doctor but I do know that sleep problems can,

According to Chinese medical knowledge,

Be related to this energy So that's why we're focusing on this today Okay,

So now we're going to come down from this The lower back may well feel fragile so do keep the knee up for now and just relax the body onto the bed or on the mat Now bring that leg down and if you've had your head to one side then just make sure you put it on the other side as well And we'll stay in rebound for around a minute This next pose is called broken wings and the target area here is the backs of the shoulders and the outside of the arms Now many people do hold a lot of tension in the shoulders so what we're going to do in this pose is we're going to stretch out that tension With the idea being to try and relax the body and help you to sleep So what we're going to do is stay lying face down but lift the chest up a bit and cross your right arm across the chest You can then cross the left arm underneath it and perhaps hold onto the shoulders to the opposite shoulders if you like You may want something to rest your head on here so put something under your chin if you need to If you want to feel more stretch in the arms or shoulders here then push the arms a bit further out and play with holding onto the shoulders or allowing the arms to be straight Of course if the stretch is too much then bring them closer in again Now just allow the body to relax and separate the legs if you want to,

That's fine Now if you're feeling a pinching sensation in the front of the shoulder here you might want to try moving the arms a bit up or down And if that doesn't work then roll over onto your back,

Bring the right arm across the chest and hold onto it with the other You might need to pull it towards you to get that stretch And if you're still experiencing pinching then again try moving the arm up and down until it's gone We'll stay here now for around two minutes,

Allowing the body to relax You might be tensing the bum for example Feel that stretch,

Stretching out any tension in the shoulders and the arms Now if you're feeling a pinching sensation in the front of the chest then roll over onto your back,

Bring the right arm across the chest and hold onto it with the other And if you're still experiencing pinching then again roll over onto your back,

Bring the right arm across the chest and hold onto it with the other And if you're still experiencing pinching then again roll over onto your back,

Bring the right arm across the chest and hold onto it with the other And if you're still experiencing pinching then again roll over onto your back,

Bring the right arm across the chest and hold onto it with the other So we're going to move out of broken wings If you're in the variation on your back please stay for a bit longer So gently,

Gently come up and then before we move to the other side,

Lie down,

Arms by the sides,

Noticing the feelings in the arms and the shoulders And if you're in the second variation then you can bring your arms down by your sides here too So gently,

Gently come up and then before we move to the other side,

Lie down,

Arms by the sides,

Noticing the feelings in the arms and the shoulders And then we'll go to the other side So this time the left goes on top of the right if you're in broken wings and you're gently pulling your left arm across your chest if you're on your back As always,

Spend a bit of time playing with this,

Moving the arms around,

Making sure that there's nothing painful We're looking for a mild to moderate stretch in the tops of the arms and hopefully into the shoulders without any pinching,

Stabbing or tingling sensations So play with the arm position as much as you need to So that's it for this video,

I hope you enjoyed it If you did,

Please like,

Share and subscribe If you didn't,

Please leave a comment below And if you want to see more of this,

Please click the link in the description below You may well find that actually,

Even with the other arm on top,

You're still feeling more stretch,

More tension in the same arm as you did last time That's completely normal and it's very possible that you're feeling this because that's the arm that you use more,

So you're going to have more tension there In the same way as we did in our meditation at the start,

You may find that emotions come up as you're in stillness You may feel irritated for example because I'm leaving you in the pose for quite a long period of time,

But again,

Just note any feelings,

Let them go and come back to the feelings in the body So that's it for this video,

I hope you enjoyed it If you did,

Please like,

Share and subscribe And if you didn't,

Please leave a comment below So let's move out of this one Gently bring the arms down by your sides and either on your back or on your front,

Just lay still for the rebound Gently bring the arms down by your sides and either on your back or on your front,

Just lay still for the rebound Gently bring the arms down by your sides and either on your back or on your front,

Just lay still for the rebound Gently bring the arms down by your sides and either on your back or on your front,

Just lay still for the rebound Now we're going to move into Shavasana or our final rebound pose and whether you're doing this in bed or on the floor Then either way,

Spend a bit of time adjusting your body When you're comfortable,

Then see if you can allow the body to relax,

To release Close the eyes and let the bed or the ground support you Again noticing what's underneath you,

The duvet,

Blanket,

Mat,

Whatever it is,

Just allow yourself to relax And if you want to sleep,

Then sleep I'll leave you here with the birds Thank you once again for joining me today It's always a pleasure Namaste

Reviews

Really great session. I feel tension in my shoulders and neck released. Thank you! Namaste 🙏🏽

Victorias Yin Yoga is absolutely fantastic. I do one of her yoga tracks every evening before bed and it helps wonders in releasing any tension from the day and getting a good night sleep. Thank you very much Victoria.

I did this first thing in the morning in bed today. I love doing yin yoga in a zoom class. I’m not sure if I was following the instructions correctly without a visual guide, especially broken wing. Maybe I will look that up. but it felt good enough anyway.

Worked quite well even without video. I love yin yoga and will explore your other tracks . Thank you.

Loved this one! Thank you so much 🙏🏻

Brilliant! Thank you🙏

Your guidance is very clear. I like your comments and your soothing voice too.

I am loving Yin yoga. Thank you for the guidance in reawakening my body

Thank you

Lovely!

Thank you Victoria. So happy to find your audio classes here on IT. And I love the birds 🐦😌