With your feet together or hip-width apart, inhale and slowly reach your arms skyward. (Photo: Andrew Clark Clothing: Calia) Tadasana (Mountain Pose) Release your head down toward the mat as you breathe deeply for another 4–5 breaths. If you like, reach behind your back to interlace your fingers and clasp your palms together. Bend your knees, hinge forward from your hips, and grasp opposite elbows or let your hands rest on the mat or blocks. Step one foot at a time to the top of your mat and separate your feet hip-width apart. (Photo: Andrew Clark) Uttanasana (Standing Forward Bend) Breathe deeply as you hold for 5-10 breaths. If you can, start to straighten your knees a little. Draw your shoulder blades toward your hips and relax your neck. As you exhale, tuck your toes under and lift your hips up and back into Downward Dog. Bend both knees deeply and work on keeping your hips lifted while pushing the floor away evenly through both hands. (Photo: Andrew Clark) Adho Mukha Svanasana (Downward-Facing Dog Pose)įrom Child’s Pose, inhale and bring yourself to Tabletop. Close your eyes and stay here for 16-20 breaths. Bring your forehead to the mat or give yourself a bit more space here by placing a block or blanket beneath your head. (Photo: (Photo: Andrew Clark Clothing: Calia)) Balasana (Child’s Pose)įrom Tabletop, bring your big toes to touch, let your knees slide a little wider than your hips, and ease your hips back over your heels with your arms extended. Inhale and reach your right arm forward and left leg back. Exhale to bring your right elbow and left knee toward each other, rounding your spine and bringing your chin in toward your chest. Inhale and extend your right arm forward and your left leg straight behind you, keeping the inner left thigh rolling skyward. Stay here or, still on all fours, gently lift your navel to your spine to engage your abdominal muscles. On an inhale, arch your spine, moving your heart forward and up and let your gaze follow. On an exhale, round your spine, pushing the floor away from you with both hands and gently lifting your navel toward your spine. Slowly come to your hands and knees, aligning your shoulders over your wrists and your hips over your knees. (Photo: Andrew Clark Clothing: Calia) Marjaryasana (Cat) and Bitilasana (Cow) As you exhale, drop both knees to the left, stacking them atop one another. Release both shoulder blades into the mat as you inhale deeply. Take your arms straight out to your sides in a T shape, palms up or down. Play with gently curling your pubic bone toward your navel and then down toward your mat to release and lengthen your lower back. Gently rock side to side or slowly circle, massaging your lower back. Slowly draw both knees toward your chest and bring your hands to your shins or the back of your thighs. A 20-minute yoga practice to ground yourself (Photo: Andrew Clark Clothing: Calia) Supta Matsyendrasana (Reclining Twist)Ĭome onto your back. And, when you do, you can more easily come back to your usual self. Instead, it can be more of a strategy that you take back with you in those difficult, unbalanced, and ungrounded moments in life, of which there are way too many, so that you don’t lose yourself so often. When this becomes your objective, your yoga practice can become less of a quick fix that allows you to go back into life and deplete yourself again before coming back to yoga. In the tradition of yoga, poses that literally bring you to the ground or allow you to fold forward and block out the other distractions are the ones that most readily center and calm us. This means that you can, at any time, draw on your body’s innate ability to regulate your nervous system by quietly noticing what you’re feeling in that moment. When you slow down and lengthen your breath, good things happen. Whether you consider it an ancient technique for grounding yourself or prefer to see it as regulating your nervous system, it doesn’t matter. However, research also supports the profound effects of drawing your awareness back to your breath. There’s ample science that reveals the human brain is not designed to deal with the contemporary world and its endless decisions and countless priorities and nonstop multitasking. Nor is it natural to have to withstand the extended heightened tension of, well, everything that’s been happening in the world. You may even feel edgy, defensive, or just out of sorts. You may find yourself constantly rushing to get all the things done yet you never actually accomplish much. Perhaps you feel the need to do everything but are unable to focus on anything. Maybe you can’t relax even when you have the time. Heading out the door? Read this article on the new Outside+ app available now on iOS devices for members!ĭo you feel like you’ve lost your usual self?
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