Yoga To Wake Up Your Brain

Feeling sluggish? Mid-afternoon sleepies sneaking in? I have the answer! Let's bring some awareness and activation to your brain. Enjoy this quick practice that is designed to wake up and ignite your brain. Need more? Play it twice!

Transcript

Hi friend,

Welcome.

My name is Megan and today I'm going to guide you through a yoga practice that will begin to ignite and wake up your brain.

Come to lay down on your back.

Go ahead and bend your knees,

Plant your feet on the floor and then your knees can stay slightly separated or you can allow them to roll in towards one another as long as that presents no pain.

What I want to invite in here right in the beginning of your practice is a level of ease.

So as you create this position,

Right,

Maybe it's like,

Right,

There's some effort to create the position.

There's effort to come down on your back,

To bend your knees.

There's effort and now let's kind of balance out that effort with a sense of ease.

So right here in your first position,

Start to become aware of your breath.

And then we're going to take that awareness one step further and we're going to start to consciously inhale and consciously exhale.

Let's do that two more times.

Deep breath in and then a nice big breath out.

Full inhale.

See if you can hold your inhale right at the top,

Finding a little space right between inhale and exhale,

Empty it out.

Beautiful.

So keep this steady stream of breath as we move throughout the practice together.

Slowly begin to hug your knees into your chest.

Just give them a bit of a squeeze.

I invite you to rock here side to side.

Begin to massage your back body.

Let it feel good.

And then we're going to connect to our breath while moving legs.

So I want you to grab a hold of your right knee.

Take a breath in here and then as you exhale,

Plant your left foot right on the floor,

Right where it just was.

So you just had knee bent,

Foot planted on the floor.

You're going to pretty much put it right back there.

And then inhale,

Draw your left knee back into your chest and exhale.

This time,

Plant your right foot down.

So right knee is bent.

Just plant your foot right down.

And then let's do that one more each side.

Inhale,

Pull your right knee back in,

Give it a squeeze.

Press your back body into your mat and then exhale,

Release your left foot.

So left foot to the floor,

Left knee is bent.

Good.

Inhale,

Knee in.

Exhale,

Take your right foot down to the ground.

Nice.

All right,

So if this feels good,

You're going to stay right here.

Everybody inhale,

Pull your knee right back in.

If you want a little bit more,

As you take your left leg down,

You can extend your left leg nice and long or you can keep your left knee bent.

Your choice.

Inhale,

Pull your left knee in.

Exhale,

Same choice.

You can take your right leg nice and long or keep your right knee bent.

Inhale,

Pull it back to center.

Come to your midline.

Exhale,

Find some length in your left side.

Right?

Either knee bent or leg extended.

All right,

So the difference is knee in flexion or knee in extension.

Beautiful.

Hug your knee right back in.

And then last one,

Right side.

So again,

Right side goes long or right knee in flexion.

Right knee is bent.

Nice.

Pull both knees right back into your chest.

And then let's finish this out with a happy baby.

So we've had our knees kind of like in center.

Let's go ahead and kind of open up through our hips now.

So separate your knees wide apart.

Make the bottoms of your feet either face the sky or the wall in front of you,

Whatever's easiest.

And then just grab what you can reach.

Yeah,

Your thighs are fine.

Maybe you find your shins.

You can find your feet cool.

What we're seeking here is happy baby,

Not like pent up,

Stressed out baby.

So let's see,

Rock a little side to side.

Can you soften your jaw a little?

Right?

Maybe you like yoga while you're in yoga.

It's always fun.

And then knees right back to center.

Okay,

From here,

We're going to make our way up to standing.

So you can rock and roll.

Right?

Do some spinal rocks forward and backwards.

Boom,

Forward and back,

Finding your feet and then stand up.

Or you can come to hands and knees.

You know,

Walk your feet to your hands and make your way to standing.

However you want to stand up,

Just do it.

And once you get to your feet,

We're going to work in almost like a tight rope position.

So I want you to,

Let's stay grounded for a sec actually.

Let's do this.

Come to both feet,

Ground down into both of your feet,

Just standing normal and then inhale,

Reach up overhead.

Let's just take a big stretch and exhale.

Bring your arms right back down.

Nice.

Okay,

Now let's work towards that tight rope.

So what I want you to do is step your right foot as best you can in front of your left.

So it's almost like you're on a tight rope.

All right,

Now that automatically should begin to wake us up.

Like,

Whoa,

Okay.

We need to ignite some muscles.

So start to hug in.

Think about pulling your skin into your muscles,

Your muscles into your bones.

Okay,

Now this is level one.

We're just kind of inhale and exhale.

Just finding,

Seeking,

Let's say creating balance here.

Okay,

Now if we want to move to level two,

Then we can start to add our arms.

So as you inhale,

You'll reach your arms straight up overhead and exhale,

Release your arms down by your side.

All right,

And then level three is you can bring your heels with you.

So as you inhale,

Lift your arms.

You can also lift your heels,

Exhale back down.

Let's go three more wherever you are,

Level one,

Two or three.

Inhale up,

Exhale down,

Ground into your feet,

Hug,

Engage the muscles of your legs,

Lift,

Exhale,

Think about pulling and rooting yourself back down into the earth.

All right,

Now last one,

How slow can you go?

Inhale,

Press to lift.

And then as you lower down,

Keep into your press.

So there's a level of press and pull constantly.

Beautiful.

Come to stand right back at center,

Feet side by side.

This is called Samastitihi when you have your arms down alongside your body,

Standing in a tension pose.

Take a breath in,

Big breath out.

Step into the opposite side,

Left foot forward.

At least that's where I am,

Left foot forward,

Right foot behind the other.

All right,

Wake up your legs.

So spread out the bones of your feet.

I always think about fanning out my toes.

And then I have to put a bend in my knees here.

So if your knees are locked,

Start to soften them.

And then from that,

Then I feel like I can engage the muscles of my legs.

And that's what I want you to do here.

So there's a level of spreading out to ground,

But there's a softening and then a hugging in.

All right,

Level one,

That's it.

Level two,

Add your arms.

Inhale,

You take your arms up overhead.

Exhale,

Lower.

Now if you take your arms up and you lose the integrity of your legs,

Maybe you take your arms down for a moment.

I always feel like what's more important for me is my connection of feet to earth.

I live in my head a lot and I live in a way almost like in my head so much outside of myself.

And so the yoga practice is an opportunity to come back in.

All right,

If you want to lift your heels,

Go ahead.

We'll do three more.

As you inhale,

Press down to rise up.

And then as you exhale,

You're still connected as you pull and press,

Root yourself right back down.

If you could think about,

I like to think about like shooting like a rocket up into the sky.

And then as you come down,

There's this gentle landing,

Right?

It's intentional.

Last one,

Ground down to lift.

Big breath in here.

And big breath out,

Lower.

Nice.

Go ahead and step out of it again.

This time,

Let's take a mountain pose.

So ground down through your feet.

Inhale,

Reach your arms up overhead.

Look up.

Exhale,

Forward fold.

Hinge from your hips.

Take your bum back.

Halfway lift.

Take your bum away from your ribs and heart.

So think about pulling your bum back,

Heart forward.

And then make your way to downward facing dog.

So if you want to do a high plank below,

Upward facing to down,

Go for it.

Those of you who are like,

What?

Land in down dog.

Make an upside down V with your body.

Nice.

And then take a breath in here.

And a big breath out.

Okay.

So we're going to wrap this session up with one of my favorite things.

Come to your seat.

So from down dog,

Bring your knees to the earth.

Come to your bum.

I want you to take a cross legged position.

So like when you sit on your bum,

Cross your ankles.

Good if you were to sit on a carpet as like a kindergartener.

And we're not going to be here too long because we're going to move a little bit from this position to another.

So we're taking a cross legged seated position.

And then I want you to rock back on your,

On your seats or on your tailbone.

You can use your hands here,

Put them on the floor,

Right opposite your hips.

Just put your hands down if you need the floor.

Rock back on your seat,

Lift your legs and then change the cross of your ankles as you come right back into your cross legged position.

So all we're doing is basically rocking back,

Changing our feet,

Change the cross and then sit back down.

All right,

So we'll do that a few times.

So as you come forward into this cross legged position,

I want you to sit up,

Take a breath in and then as you exhale,

You're going to rock back on your tailbone.

You almost lift into a boat pose here with your legs.

You can change the cross of your feet and then come right back into your cross legged position.

Nice.

Rock it back.

Come into your boat.

Exhale,

Cross your feet,

Sit up nice and tall.

I think I mixed the breath there,

But that's okay.

Find your breath however you need to inhale and exhale.

Rock into your boat,

Lift your legs,

Change the cross of your feet,

Sit up nice and tall.

Good.

Couple more rounds.

Just a little bit of brain work,

Right?

Crossing the midline,

Rock back.

That's what you're doing when you cross the midline of your body.

You ignite your brain in a different way.

Good.

Release your feet.

Let's do one more.

Come back to your boat and then see if you can land in your non-dominant cross.

That's how we'll land.

Non-dominant cross.

There you go.

Bring your hands to rest right on your thighs.

We'll close out with a breath together.

Take a big breath in and a big breath out.

Wonderful job.

Bring your hands to your heart center.

I acknowledge you for showing up today,

For giving yourself just over 10 minutes to ignite your body and ignite your brain.

I hope this helps you feel active,

It feels alert and ready to take on whatever else you're facing in your day.

Have a beautiful,

Beautiful day,

Guys.

Namaste.

Reviews

My takeaway: amovement meditations are preferred for me. I'm not a morning person. I can still fall back asleep. Balancing on tightrope with eyes shut is going to have to be part of my routine first thing to challenge the mind. The arms up and down and tiptoe levels are good to crank up as needed. I would love to hear a variety of short morning variations like this. I like the no fuss delivery. :) KEY: 5*Insightful 4*Interesting 3*Okay 2*Not For Me 1*Irritating

Hello beautiful 🌺🌹🌺🌹🌺Thank you so much for the wonderful yoga session 🌞🌞🌞it gives me so much sunshine 🗺️have a blessed day 🕉️Namaste

Lovely, easy flow. Perfect for first thing in the morning!

Very enjoyable, connecting body breath and a balance challenge

This is a lovely way to wake up, and it's so nice to hear your voice again Megan. ¡Gracias, chica!