Relax, Sleep Deeply, and Awaken Refreshed

If you have insomnia and trouble sleeping at night, look at what is causing stress in your life. Once we understand that we are not victims of life, we see that we are in charge of the choices that structure our situation and our response to what happens. It is never too late to make changes that will make us happier. We alone are responsible for setting boundaries, controlling how we use our time, knowing our own life’s purpose and seeing that we fulfill it before we die. We can only find happiness within ourselves.

Sometimes our lives are out of balance because of our personal choices. In The Complete Illustrated Book of Yoga, one of the master yoga teachers of the 20th century, Vishnu-Devananda, taught that a balanced lifestyle includes 5 points:

• Right exercise, including aerobic exercise and yoga postures

• Right diet, including reducing or eliminating toxins like caffeine, sugar, alcohol, chemical-laden food and meat

• Right relaxation, including conscious relaxation as well as sleep

• Right attitude and positive thinking, including meditation

• Right breathing, including yogic breathing or pranayama

Life is a brief impermanent incandescence that faces us with opportunity to learn and grow. At the heart of every breath is a new beginning that beckons us to know who we really are.

This flow of yoga postures before sleeping will help you quiet your mind, relax into deep restorative sleep and awaken refreshed.

• Modified shoulder stand
• Gentle cobra
• Janu sirsana
• Seated side stretch
• Child pose
• Svasana
• Mental anuloma viloma--lying on your back in relaxation posture, picture your breath entering your left nostril, leaving your right nostril, then entering your right and leaving your left. Stay focussed on your breath. Feel it at your nostrils. Each time you exhale, switch nostrils. Count the start of a new cycle each time you inhale through the left. Do ten cycles. If you lose count and drift off, begin again.
  

Learn more about yoga from a qualified teacher at a studio near you.

This DVD for home practice has an easy yoga flow of seated and lying postures and an extended guided relaxation: Gentle Yoga for Seniors and Beginners.