When you add the hands interlaced behind your back and lifting and lowering your hips, you also get a shoulder release and the nurturing quality of rocking.įrom Child’s Pose, interlace your fingers behind your back, lift your hips, and roll to the crown of your head. You get the relaxation of the exhale and comfort of being curled up in a ball. It almost feels like what the body wants to do. I find this to be one of the best yoga poses for stress. Take your knees to the floor, sit on your heels, and fold forward with your head on the floor. Heel-toe your feet together and step to the front of your mat to transition into Child’s Pose. Inhale, come to a flat back, take your hands to your hips, and drop the flesh of your buttocks to come to stand. If your head doesn’t reach the floor, you can place it on a block. Place your hands on the floor, shoulder-distance apart, fingers in line with your toes. Inhale, lift your chest, and with an exhale, bend forward from your hip joints to come into a forward bend.

Turn your feet parallel to each other and place your hands on your hips. This pose has the benefits of a forward bend with the comfort of the head touching a prop, which also releases some of the pressure in the head. Wide-Legged Standing Forward Bend (Prasarita Padottanasana) Drop the flesh of your buttocks to the floor to propel you up to stand. Take your hands to your hips, and your thumbs to the top of your behind. Hold for 5 breaths, then change the interlace by putting the other index finger on top and stay for another 5 breaths. With your fingers interlaced and your arms behind your back, lift your arms any amount away from your back. When in Standing Forward Bend, use your front thigh muscles to actively pull your kneecaps up toward your hips. This pose also helps to release the hamstrings, which can get bound up when you’re stuck in fight-or-flight mode. Plus, with the arms behind the back, we release shoulder tension. Not only do forward bends increase the exhalation, helping to relieve stress, they also turn us inward. Standing Forward Bend (Uttanasana) with Shoulder Opener Put your hands on the floor, then straighten both legs into a Standing Forward Bend.Īdding a forward bend increases the exhale, leading to the relaxation response. Stay for 5 breaths, then put the other shin in front. Sit in Easy Pose, shins crossed with your right shin in front.

8 Yoga Poses for Stress Relief Easy Pose (Sukhasana) with Forward Bend The following forward bend sequence can help address the symptoms of stress. Forward bends are also restorative and move the needle of our battery back to the black. Eventually, we want to get into a forward bend, which increase the exhalation, leading to the relaxation response. One technique is to notice where stress or panic lands in the body, and take our mind and breath there. When inner peace is nowhere to be found, it’s time to tune into the body. It’s like being stuck in semi-panic mode, where there is very little exhale, and the neck, head, and shoulders are likely to be tense. When our batteries are so depleted, we can’t deal, and anything can push us over the edge. Can any of you relate? I needed a yoga practice for stress. My fuse was spent and the trigger just happened to be the razor. I was running as fast as I could but was coming up short on every realm. What the heck? I had endured a lot in my life and a broken razor was taking me down? It had been a stressful week of deadlines that weren’t met, disappointing people that I felt were counting on me, family bad news, a broken phone, and I felt like I couldn’t even spare a couple of hours off for date night with my husband. I could barely breathe as I sat down in the shower with my head in my hands. Last week I crumbled in the shower after I dropped the razor and broke off the handle.

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Standing yoga sequences