The holidays have you feeling overwhelmed and wound up? Yoga is your answer!
While it can be a challenging exercise that boosts your energy, it does much more than just test your flexibility – it can lower stress levels, clear your mind, and even cure headaches and other ailments. If you’re feeling too tense at the end of the day and you just want to relax, try these 6 poses for the ultimate way to unwind.
1. Legs Up The Wall
This pose is the perfect way to wind down before hitting the hay. Legs up the wall gets your blood flowing, calms you down, and helps relieve tension in the feet and legs after a long day. Stay in this position for a few minutes and concentrate on deep breathing to feel ready for rest in no-time.
2. Pigeon
Your hips tend to hold a lot of stress and tension and that’s why the pigeon pose does wonders for relaxation. It opens up your hips and improves your overall posture, alignment, and flexibility. It also decreases strain on your knees and pain in your lower back.
3. Reclining Bound Angle
The reclining bound angle pose stretches out your inner thighs, stimulates the organs, improves digestion, and relaxes the mind. It’s a great way to undo sitting in a stiff desk chair all day.
4. Standing Forward Bend
The standing forward bend is the ultimate stretch to banish stress from your back and neck. It stretches everything from your calves up and will calm your mind so that you can relax in peace.
5. Child’s Pose
Yoga poses don’t get much more peaceful than child’s pose. Instead of curling up into a ball on the couch in front of the TV, curl up in this pose in peace and feel all your stress fade away. It’s the perfect way to gently stretch out your body, eliminate fatigue, steady your breathing, and calm down.
6. Cobra
Photo via ABQ Journal
Cobra pose opens up the chest and helps to stretch, strengthen, and relax your back and abdominal muscles at the same time to relieve tension and back pain, open up your breathing, and help with digestion. Perfect if you’ve been slouching in a chair all day at work and you need to loosen up!
Do you use yoga to keep calm? Name your zen place!
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