Bedtime Yoga Routine for Better Sleep - Therapeutic Yoga

Transcript

Hey, everybody is Doctor Jo and my good 
friend Trudy who's not only a physical   therapist, but she is a registered yoga 
instructor. So today we're going to do   therapeutic yoga for sleep. So let's get started. So a lot of you guys asked me, What do I do 
for therapy and so I always check out Trudy's   channel and I take her online classes because 
she is awesome. She's a registered yoga teacher.   And she's just got an awesome channel 
with a lot of real time videos. So   I'll let you tell them your channel. Hey, guys, I'm Trudy from heal wellness and therapy. Now, 
YouTube heal wellness and therapy is my channel   and my website is healwellnessandtherapy.com. 
Today, we're going to be doing three therapeutic   yoga exercises to aid sleep. So what we're going 
to start with is a laying down. So take wherever   you're watching this and find yourself in a nice 
comfy laying down position. And we're going to   get going. Now, the one thing that I would tell 
you from a yoga perspective relative to sleep as   you never want to do any exercises to wake up the 
front of your spine. So think about what you do   when you first wake up in the morning, or what you 
see people doing in the movies, when they first   wake up in the morning, what is it and they extend 
through the spine, right. So with yoga and sleep,   the one thing you want to do is try to not create 
a lot of length through the front of your spine.   Most of us with sleep, the reason that we 
need to do some sort of yoga exercises or   yoga poses for sleep is because our back is 
tense and tight our hips and tense and tight.   And for some of us, we just can't keep our 
legs still. So we're going to go over what   I think are the three best therapeutic yoga 
exercises to help all of that. All right, Jo,   let's start with the first one and that is 
the evil piriformis muscle in the buttock.   So we're going to take our right knee and 
bring our knee up into our chest. Now,   make sure the knee comes midline to the center 
of the chest, hands behind the back of the knee   in that position. Once you have yourself there, 
take a nice deep inhale. And then as you exhale,   pull the knee even closer into the chest. Now, 
her little left tight hip is already starting   to lift. So we're just going to push it back 
down onto the bed and let it not want to play   in this party. Then left hand right ankle, grab 
it, keeping that right knee in the center of the   chest. take a nice deep inhale there. And as 
you exhale, start to rotate that right foot   all the way up towards this a left shoulder and 
what do we feel, feel it in my piriformis right   in the buttock area. So holding that position 
that piriformis attaches to part of your pelvis.   And so if we do deep diaphragmatic breaths 
to spread that pelvic floor, we're gonna get   some good relaxation. So deep inhale into your 
belly all the way down into your pelvic floor.   And slow exhaling out. Let's do one more breath. 
Nice, deep inhale in. And then slow exhaling out.   You've got it slowly releasing the ankle, bringing 
the knee back in, line the ankle back in line and   then slowly dropping the right foot down to the 
bed. Taking that left knee up into the chest.   Getting a nice good stretch to the gluteals 
first, so deep inhale here and then as you exhale,   pulling that left knee up and into the 
center of the chest. Now with the right hand,   left ankle holding on, they're maintaining that 
knee into the chest. Nice, deep inhale here.   And then as you exhale, pulling that right 
and left ankle up towards that right shoulder.   maintain that knee in the center of 
the chest. Can you feel it? Yes, yes. Let's do those two deep diaphragmatic 
breaths. So deep. Inhale far down into   the hip. Feel the muscles stretch on the 
inhale. Then as you exhale, slowly relaxing.   One more time. Nice, deep inhale in. Yeah, 
that's it. Exhaling slowly, relaxing, beautiful,   releasing hand from the ankle, getting that 
alignment through the ankle, knee and hip,   and then dropping the left foot down. All 
right, second exercise for sleep. Just a gentle   elongation through the whole low back gluteals 
and hips together. So bring your right knee up   towards your right shoulder, left knee up towards 
the left shoulder, hands around the shin bones,   check in that you line up your knees about 
six inches apart, so about two fists,   and then the ankles gaze down and make sure that 
they align up as well. So we want that nice,   good alignment through the hips as we're opening 
up with knees to chest here, relaxing through the   shoulders, relaxing through the neck, taking 
a nice deep inhale in and then as you exhale   slowly pulling those knees to the chest, letting 
that tailbone just slightly lift off of the bed.   One more breath, doing the same 
thing there. Deep inhale in.   And then as you exhale, pulling. Now, if 
you're at home and you're getting a bit of   impingement in your hip, that's a pinching white 
there in the front of your hip. That's okay,   just to let your tailbone come up a little bit so 
that you're not talking to the front of your head,   you're talking to the back of your hip and your 
back. Okay, to slow, deep inhales and exhales,   deep inhale and imagine you feel your pelvic floor 
spreading as you're doing that. And then as you   exhale, just relaxing in that position, you've 
got it one more time. Nice, deep inhaling in   and exhaling out beautiful job. Now bring those 
hands back around the backside of those knees.   third exercise for sleep, legs up the 
wall. So a beautiful lymphatic waterfall of   all of the blood flow of your legs. 
So very gently begin to straighten   your legs as your knees come away 
from your chest. So we don't want to   put too much tension on the hamstrings, 
especially if the hamstrings are tight.   So slowly, let the legs come away so that 
there's not so much shaking that you're having a,   you're having an arm wrestle with your legs, feet 
are gently up onto the ceiling, allowing yourself   to hold the weight of your legs there. Let the 
legs fall into the arms, let the big biceps take   the weight of those legs, relax the shoulders, 
relax the trunk. And now really focus on a deep,   slow inhale into the belly. And then even a slower 
exhale out. One more time, nice, deep inhale in.   And slow exhaling out. You've got to gently 
bring those knees back to the chest. And as   you bring those knees back to the chest, take 
a deep inhale there. And then as you exhale,   relax, slowly dropped one leg down, followed by 
the other if we were ready for slumber right now   we'd have a pillow underneath those legs. Slide 
those legs down that bed. Rest those hands on the   pelvis. Did you know if you rest your hands 
on your pelvis when you go to bed at night,   it actually facilitates diaphragmatic breathing 
and you rest easy and fall asleep faster. And then gently closing the eyes and off to 
slumber we go. How'd you do? That was really nice,   relaxing, actually wonderful. All right. So 
there you have it. That was some therapeutic   yoga for sleep. And all you Canadians give Trudy 
a shout out because she's originally from Canada.   How's it going, eh? Eh! And if you'd like to help 
support my channel, click the link up there.   And if you haven't subscribed yet, make sure and 
click down there. And remember, be safe, have fun,   and I hope you feel better soon. And wait. 
There's more more therapeutic yoga, we want to end with a peaceful solution. salutation 
to everyone. So hands to the center of your heart,   smiles on your face. Nice deep inhale in   and exhaling out namaste the highest 
in me salutes the highest in you.