Friday Q&A: Yoga Tricks for Better Sleep

Nina: At the end of my post "Yoga You Can Do In Bed", I asked for additional suggestions from our readers. Caryn Dickman, a yoga teacher at Piedmont Yoga Studio (see here), wrote in with such good suggestions, I decided, with her permission, to post them here. What I love about her suggestions is that she obviously listened to her body and used her creativity to come up with "yoga tricks" that worked for her.

Caryn: I have found a way of doing Child's pose in bed using the pillows that doesn't disturb my partner and allows me to bring the awareness inwards when I can't seem to calm myself through the breath. After 5-10 minutes propped on pillows and still under the covers I find that my mind slows down enough to start benefiting from watching the breath. I eventually crawl back to sleeping positions and then concentrate on watching the inhale and exhale through expanding and contracting the back of the rib cage left to right, etc. I usually fall back to sleep, and a very deep sleep, after doing that.

Another "yoga trick" I do is when I wake up and feel anxiety in my body. I have this need to move some or else sleep will not come. So I stand near the side of the bed in the dark and pay attention to the inhale and exhale. I then very slowly lift my arms towards the sky and then slightly bend my knees as I come forward to a very gentle Uttanasana. I keep bending my knees more so that I come to a gentle squat (very gentle squat) and let my arms dangle towards the ground. When I reach the ground I slowly start to roll into my back body to come on up. I do this a very times. Again, very slowly and gently watching the breath throughout. It tends to get rid of the anxiety in my body and then I can either just go back to sleep or do the Child's pose I mentioned above and I go back to bed.

Nina: I think I'm going to try that under-the-covers Child's pose myself sometime soon. Anyone else have some good yoga tricks up their sleeves?