An Evening Yoga Routine to Improve your Sleep and Relaxation
It can be difficult to find time for ourselves in our multi-tasked days. We often move from task to task, and if we do not make space for our practice to calm the body and mind we can easily forget to make space for ourselves.
While a morning yoga practice will create the framework for a more composed day, an evening yoga practice is just as beneficial. Following this practice we wind down the body, fall asleep sooner and prepare the body for a deeper sleep.
Meditation, breathing practices, soft music, binural beats, reading sacred and spiritual texts are just some ways that you can enhance your evening yoga practice to settle the ripples in the water from stress and distraction.
A regular yoga practice can have similar benefits to sleep, in its ability to regenerate the body and settle the mind.
Reasons to Practice Evening Yoga Before Sleep
A regular yoga practice can have similar benefits to sleep, in its ability to regenerate the body and settle the mind. As you continue your practice, you will begin to develop
Evening yoga helps you breathe deeper
Breath is the core of yoga; a tool used by yogis to move energy through the body. As we begin to breath deeper with diaphragmatic breath we set our bodies to release toxins.
Evening yoga takes the body out of the Fight or Flight response
It is important to de-stress before bed so that we may have a fuller and deeper nights of sleep. Your worries will lessen as your body relaxes and breath is smoother and slower.
Evening yoga relaxes muscles
Reduces muscle tension collected through out the day for deeper sleep.
An evening yoga practice helps create habits to support your wellness
With an evening yoga routine you will cultivate the habits that support your wellness. Instead of watching media, snacking or working before bed you will finish the day with wellness affirming habits.
Doing yoga before sleep helps you fall asleep faster
You will fall asleep faster as your mind settles sooner. You will also find the quality of sleep improves as you go into deeper states of sleep sooner.
Styles of Yoga for an Evening Routine
Yoga Nidra
This is also a time to explore visual meditations and mind yoga practices like Yoga Nidra. This style of yoga uses visualization and create awareness of the body in order to create relaxed states and a more positive outlook.
Restorative Yoga
This style of yoga puts emphasis on the holding of poses for a longer period of time. Different props such as blanket, bolsters and blocks are used to support the body. There is empahsis on folds, reclining twists and nurishing hip openers like pigeon. These poses are normally done laying down.
Therapeutic Yoga
This approach before bed includes the progressive lengthening of the exhale. An example of this could include:
- sitting on cushion with your legs crossed
- raising the arms as you exhale for a count of 5.
- Pausing for a count of 5
- and exhaling for a count of 7.
When you feel ready, after a week or two of practice, you can increase the length of the inhale to exhale by 2:
- 7 inhale, 7 pause, 9 exhale.
Tips for Your Calm Evening Yoga Practice
Exhale before Bed
In an evening yoga practice, the emphasis is on the exhale with each asana, as we move our body and extend. This usually looks like counting the breath for longer as we exhale. Doing so calms the parasympathetic nervous system.
Be sure not to overwhelm the body
Active poses in the evening, can destabilizing the circadian system in the body.
Follow the rhythm of nature with a calming slow approach, with longer-held poses. Restorative Yoga, with a focus on the length of held stretches and comforting asanas is often practised in the evening. To read more about Restorative Yoga poses check out this article: Restorative Yoga: The Basics Plus 5 Poses.
Slow down the mind and relax the body
Empty the mind of chatter and distractions. You may want to use this time to listen to soft music, including binaural beats to support your yoga practice.
Minimize or Turn off Electronics
Cultivate the habit to turn off all electronic devices before your practice and avoid overstimulating the mind once again with electronics after the practice. The blue light emitting from our electronic devices alters our Circadian rhythms, as the over-pour of information can re-stimulate the mind.
Be patient with yourself and practice self-compassion
A conscious attempt to slow the breath can sometimes lead to anxiety and internal thoughts that bring up frustrations of the day. As you remain consistent with your practice, you will notice how you are able to persevere and withstand this discomfort until it feels less severe in your mind.
Be sure to love yourself through this process.
An evening yoga practice has immense benefits and does not need to be long. A 20- minute practice can sufficiently create the states in your mind and body to bring you to a more restful sleep.
Now that you are sleepy and relaxed, would you like to be inspired to optimize your bed time? Read about it here in Do Calm’s article How to Create your Peaceful Sleep and Sleep Like a Baby.
