Yoga does wonders for stress and sleep, and here are some poses to keep in mind while you’re winding down each day!
A lot of people struggle to get high-quality sleep on a nightly basis, and this is partly because it’s often difficult for us to fully unwind and relax after long days at work. And even though fitness and exercise can do wonders for your sleep quality, there’s nothing quite like doing yoga poses just before bedtime.
All of us at Rising Legends are huge yogis who’ve embraced this ancient practice of breathwork and physical postures as a form of moving meditation. There are many different benefits of having a consistent yoga practice, including improved strength and flexibility, injury prevention, and reduced anxiety and stress levels.
Below we’ll be detailing how simple yoga poses can be a great complement to your regular workout routine, and how doing yoga as you’re winding down each day can dramatically improve your sleep quality!
How Does Yoga Help Improve Sleep Quality?
Although all exercise can improve sleep quality, doing intense workouts close to bedtime can actually make it more difficult for you to fall asleep. On the other hand, yoga just before bedtime can actually increase your likelihood of falling asleep faster.
Yoga promotes better sleep through the following reasons:
- Encouraging full-body relaxation: The meditation and deep-stretch techniques of yoga go a very long way to release stressful tension and tightness that often builds up during the course of each day. Being more present within both your mind and body is the perfect balance to prepare you for a good night’s rest.
- Regulating your sleep cycle: Yoga is known for increasing your body’s melatonin production, which is the hormone that regulates your sleep cycle.
- Improving sleep quality: Yoga helps people with not only just falling asleep faster, but also improving sleep quality. This is partly due to yoga’s meditative philosophy, which encourages deeper, more efficient sleeping.
- Improving breathing: Yoga helps people to increase their overall lung capacity, which subsequently leads to improved breath quality—and more relaxing sleep.
Which Yoga Style Is Best For Improving My Sleep Quality?
It’s important to remember that there are many different styles of yoga. Some are intense and high-energy, whereas others are more relaxing and slower.
When you’re practicing yoga earlier in the day, you might prefer vinyasa style, which is great for boosting your energy levels. But when you’re trying to implement yoga into your nightly routine, you’ll likely benefit more from yin yoga.
Yin yoga is very meditative and slow-paced, and it encourages you to hold deeper postures and stretches for longer periods of time. When you hold out your stretches for a few minutes at a time, you can target deep connective tissue throughout your body. This leads to better flexibility and reduced stiffness, and it also reduces all sorts of tension that can hold you back from a good night’s rest.
Yin yoga also offers many mental benefits as well, and it encourages you to focus on your breathwork—which is perfect while preparing for bedtime!
Yoga Posses That Promote Better Sleep
There are several different poses that you should keep in mind when you want to incorporate yoga into your bedtime routine. You don’t always have to hold these poses for as long as yin sessions typically require, but try to hold each pose for a minimum of 10 slow breaths.
Here are some of the best yoga poses that promote better sleep quality:
- Child’s pose
- Legs up the wall
- Thread the needle
- Pigeon pose
- Corpse pose
Reach Out To Rising Legends When You Need Help Incorporating Yoga Stretches Into Your Bedtime Routine!
Rising Legends is a top-rated fitness facility that has helped people blend more conventional workout routines with yoga and other fitness strategies, and all of us love how far yoga stretches can go to improve sleep quality and ensure long-term fitness results.
We look forward to seeing you at the gym!