Anti-Anxiety At Home Restorative Yoga Routine

Good morning!

I walked into my office this morning to find a few early birthday presents sitting on my desk. My members and employees are too sweet to me. I am very blessed!

Yesterday after work I headed over to the gym to do some light cardio and take a TRX class. You may find that strange since I teach TRX just about every single day, but every now and then, I like to visit another instructors class to pick up any tips or exercises I hadn't thought of. It's nice to try another style of teaching as mine is pretty different than most in the Group Exercise world. Anyway, if you are an instructor, I would definitely tell you, no matter what their level or experience teaching, you can always walk away having learned at least one thing by taking another person's class. Whether it be finding a new music resource, trying a modification of a move you hadn't tried before, or maybe teaching the class with a different organizational approach. It's also a great way to get into "participant mode" and experience what they may be feeling during a training session.

After that, I headed over to the Yoga studio to take one of their "Pay What You Can" classes, called Candlelight Relax and Restore. It's full of meditational breathing and slow postures that are held for a longer period of time than a traditional yoga class. I love this class when I'm feeling stressed or anxious. It has a very calming affect! It was a good evening of exercise for me!

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Restorative Yoga is one of those things that I tell a lot of my participants who are Type A and have no interest in these types of classes, that they are the ones that need it the most! It's no question to anyone that I am certainly, a Type A personality all the way. I know that I am high-stress, often times even to the point where negatively high strung and if that doesn't stay out of control, I suffer not only mentally but physically as well. The last thing I want is my emotional state to affect my job or my relationships. Your spirituality, whether religious or not, is actually something that you have to put time into just like anything else. Absolutely anyone can benefit from attempting to center themselves and take time out of their day to focus on their breath and being in tune with their body. It's also great fore prenatal exercise, a fantastic cool down after a hard work out or a just a solid way to end your day.

Because I believe it should be an integral part of every one's daily routine, whether it's one or two poses each day or even sitting in a meditative state, clearing the mind for a few moments each morning or evening, I have developed a restorative yoga routine for you to do right in the comfort of your own home. If you don't have bolsters or blocks or a mat, don't worry! We can use props from around the house.

Setting up for Your At-Home Restorative Yoga Session

• Find a quiet space where you will not be disturbed by noise, people or electronics.
• Turn on some light classical music or even ambiance type noise like beach waves, wind, and other nature sounds are great to use. If you don't have any of these on your music device, search them on YouTube. There are also great guided meditations here as well!
• You will want either dim lighting or none at all. Light a few candles around you in a safe spot can be very serene and set the scene well. 

Props You May Want to Have Handy

• A mat or blanket on a sturdy, flat floor/space.
• A couple throw pillows or bedroom pillows.
• One or two blankets.
• Yoga blocks, if you have them. (We can substitute folded up blankets/pillows here if need, be). 
• Optional- eye pillow, or something like a headband, a long sock to cover up your eyes while in supine positions. 

Things to Think About

• Focus on bringing your breath into your movements. With every inhale your are thinking about lengthening and bringing more space into the areas you are feeling a stretch, and exhaling to allow the body to fall further into the stretch, relax deeper and allow gravity to pull you closer to the ground.
• Try to challenge the mind, to stay present and focus on the breath, and how your body is feeling. As the mind wanders, know that this is completely normal, and just bring your focus back to your body on the very next breath. As you practice, this become easier. 
• You may want to incorporate an uujayi breath here. This is an audible breath technique that is very calming, focusing and refreshing. Breathing in and out through the nostrils, creating that deep ocean sound or the "haaaa," you make in the back of your throat when your fogging up a mirror. Here is a great resource for a video on this breath if it doesn't make sense to you. You should be able to hear this breath. 
• With each pose, scan through your body and find places to relax deeper. Sometimes your jaw, mouth, forehead are places that are tense when we don't even realize.
• Every move you do in this series, should feel good! Make any movements or modifications at any time. If you are having a hard time relaxing after the first ten breaths or so, make an adjustment that feels good for your body and bring your focus back to your breath. There is no right or wrong here. These moves are simply offerings, that you can take or leave, or change as you wish.

Anti-Anxiety At Home Restorative Yoga Routine

1. Recliner: This pose is a great place to start. Basically, you are going to take your bolster, pillow or folded up blanket, and set the bottom half on the floor while the top half is supported by a block or another pillow. Open the palms by the sides, close the eyes. If you are comfortable with it, bring the soles of the feet together, allowing the knees to fall apart. If they don't reach the floor, providing a support underneath them with more blankets or pillows is perfect. Remember- you want to feel completely supported so you can totally relax and release any tension. For the first minute or two breath naturally as you start to bring your focus to your body. Gently work into that uujayi breath for the next three minutes. 

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2. Supportive Wide Leg Child's Pose: Coming onto the knees, bring your knees the width of the mat and pull a pillow or bolster in close to the inner thighs. Take a nice, deep inhale and gently flow forward, allowing your weight to fall into the bolster. Some people like to prop an additional pillow on top so that they again, are completely supported. Stay here, focusing on your breath for five minutes.

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3. Supportive Forward Fold: Push the bolster or pillows gently away, bringing the legs together, straight out in front of you. Place the bolster/pillows directly on top of your legs. Stretch up high, reaching for the sky with a deep inhale and again, release forward onto the bolster, using an additional prop to support the head if need be. Spend five minutes here.

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4. Supported Fish Pose: Sit up tall and bring the bolster or pillow directly behind you, length wise (go the direction of your spine), bringing it as close to your hips as you can. Take a nice deep breath sit up tall and then carefully and slowly, as you exhale, relax back over the prop. Experiment here with moving the arms into different positions to really open up the chest, heart and shoulders.

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5. Legs Up the Wall: A great way to end your practice. Spend five minutes in this position where you will be lying flat on your back with your glutes all the way up to the wall, as close as you can get them and legs straight up the wall. Some people prefer to place a prop directly under the small of the ball for an additional stretch in the lower spine and a heart and chest opener. Spend the first two minutes in that uujayi, ocean-like breath, and then three minutes breathing normally, settling in to the end of your practice.

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Even if you didn't get through the whole series, practicing one or two of these poses a few times a week can be very beneficial to your spiritual well-being. Not overly taxing, these poses are very safe for healthy individuals and can be modified for those with any special needs. I'm going to work to start incorporating some of these at home when I'm feeling anxious or stressed. I absolutely love this stuff. Lets see if I can do it without the Fitness Pups crawling all over me, yeah right!

Today, I'm at the office, teaching at 10, crossing some things off my to-do list and attending a staff meeting at 1:00. I'm meeting a friend for dinner after work who is in town to do the Half Ironman here at Beach to Battleship! I was just saying yesterday how crazy it is that I'm going to run my first marathon in just over 50 days. Can you image swimming 2.4 miles, biking 112 miles and THEN running a marathon, 26.2 miles? Ironmen and women are amazing athletes!

Have a wonderful, serene Thursday!