Three yoga tips for sleep

Please, if you have any eye problems do not attempt any inversions. If you have significant back or neck issues, consult with a yoga teacher or better yet a doctor whose opinion you trust before attempting pose number one. The same goes for any discomfort that is not easily resolved with a slight shift of position. 


1) Legs-up-the-wall pose, also known as Viparita Karani or the Great Rejuvenator, is my favorite way to wind down at the end of the day. It's also very good for anyone who has been on their feet a lot, as it helps reduce edema in the lower extremities and facilitates circulation back to the heart.

2) Side-lying Savasana.
 Note the placement of the pillows. The one between the knees effectively brings the knees out to hip-width, relieving pull across the lower back and back of the hips, and I sometimes add a pillow lower, so that I support not only the knees at this width, but also cushion and support the ankles. The pillow between the arms is very comforting and soothing, so it is also important, and of course the pillow under the head helps keep the head and cervical vertebrae aligned with the rest of the spine.

3) Shakti mudra.

 Can be combined with the last pose to good effect: Simply place the corner of the pillowcase between the ring and little fingers. According to Gertrud Hirschi, author of Mudra: Yoga In Your Hands, Shakti mudra "intensifies the respiratory impulse in the lower chest area". This helps us transition from a shallower breathing style to  a deeper one, which encourages the release/relax phenomenon that is necessary for us to fall asleep.

Wisconsin

Long time, no write-y.

A quick catch-you-up: Last summer, as many of my readers are aware, I left the Mendocino Coast of Northern California, where I had been living and teaching for several years, for the Bay Area. Shortly after I made that move, my father passed away, and I spent the rest of the summer in Wisconsin, with my family. I returned to California to finish one last semester of school, chilled for a month, and am now back in Wisconsin, where I will stay for the next 5-6 months or so. Ah, winter in the midwest. If anyone has ever doubted whether I have a streak of crazy in me...;)
Actually, that's not fair. There is a great deal of "doing the right thing" involved with the timing of my move back to the Midwest, and that I am moving in flow with the universe has been shown to me in all the wonderful things that have happened since I left California and arrived in:

the only-Frank-Lloyd-Wright-inspired-airport-that-I-am-aware-of (it was a dark and snowless Wisconsin night...).



Anyway, I have begun teaching again; picking up a couple of classes at a lovely local studio, here in my hometown. The name of the studio is Second Star, and this sweet space saved me many times last summer, when I was feeling like so much flotsam in the wake of my father's death, being roughed up by unseen currents.

 My weekly classes:
Thursday nights, Mixed Level, 7-8 pm.
Sunday nights, Candlelight Yoga, 5-6 pm.
And a special workshop on Saturday, February 25th: Yoga Mudra, 9:30-11 am.

Isn't it a beautiful space?

I love that the studio also hosts an art gallery, which space you can begin to see to the left of the paper cranes in the picture above.

Second Star Studio