Breathe

Namaste and welcome everybody. In these days of busyness and the lockdown and working from home, I'm sure a lot of us have no way of winding down and going to sleep easily. So I'm going to give you a really nice, simple set of sequences to help your mind relax, help the body relax and release the stress, and help you find the ability to sleep really easily.

So first and foremost, I want you to come into a nice seated posture. Ideally, I want you to bring in the ankle in front of the ankle, just stacking both those ankles in a nice line, and keep your knees wide. Keep the knees wide because you can use the palms to kind of elevate through the chest — most of us are spending our days sitting on chairs, so this tends to happen. So use the palms to just sit as straight as you can, push up through the chest, peel open your shoulder blades. Okay, and then just gently bring your eyes to a close.

Take a few seconds to quieten down your minds. You've probably had a really busy day with a lot going on, personally and professionally, but for now, put a pause button on everything life has brought to your table. I'm going to do this just by taking in a few beautiful deep breaths.

With your right hand, I want you to take Vishnu mudra with it, which just means folding in the second and third finger, your index and middle finger. With your thumb, you'll close the right nostril and take a long inhale through the left side. You close it with your ring finger and exhale through the right.

We're doing this again: inhale through the right side, close, hold your breath, and exhale through the left. Doing one more round: inhaling through the left side, close, hold your breath, exhale through the right, and inhale through the right side, close, hold your breath, and exhale through the left. Doing one last round, so inhale through the left, close, hold your breath, and exhale through the right. And finally, inhale through the right side, close, hold your breath, and exhale through the left.

Once you're done, release the hands, allow the mind to settle down a bit more. Take a second in the silent space that we've created, and slowly start by rubbing your palms together — very slowly — until you feel some heat, some energy. Slowly, as you're ready, pull the palms apart, place the palms over your eyes, massaging your eyes in these big circular motions, and take the hands across the sides of the cheek, the back of your neck, your arms, your legs, as you gently massage and feel every part of you.

That breath was really important. When we're working or doing anything, we're predominantly left-brained, so the right nostril is more active. If we are more right-brained, then the left nostril is more active. So we're trying to find balance between both those brains and finding calmness so that one is not overactive.

So let's start. I'm going to be using some blocks, and if you're at home and you don't have them, that's equally fine — you can use pillows to do the same thing, which I'm going to do. So when you just set up the blocks, set them upright; if you're using a pillow, fold it in half so that this height is that. Then when you turn around and meet me in Baddha Konasana, or the bound angle pose, where your feet are together and your knees are apart.

Now these blocks need to come and meet directly underneath the shoulder blade — you see these little shoulder blades that are popping out? Just underneath that, so that the shoulder drapes over the blocks, or your pillows, whichever you're choosing to use today. So find a nice little crevice for the blocks or the pillows, drape your spine over it, let the head rest, and the palms face the sky. Close your eyes and allow yourself to stay there.

If you find too much tension in your neck, you can even grab a pillow and place it just underneath your head, but ideally I want you to just try and stay here. Remember, this is more about comfort than precision, so your space comes to be as you can. Allow the shoulders to melt down like they're made of heavy, like ice, right? That's just melting to the air.

Close your eyes and be still. Observe how the breath feels in your lungs — with every inhale the chest is expanding, with every exhale you're melting deeper into the air. It's really important to keep your body open this way. As we work very hard, sometimes breath becomes short and quick, but as you hold this pose, you reconnect with your breathing and you reconnect with your heart. Allow both those elements to feel more open as your palms face the sky and your eyes come to a close.

Stay here as you gently drape over, almost like fabric, over your pillows or your blocks. You must almost feel like the ribs are going to point out and tear over your skin. Feel the stretch and strain in your throat. Relax your fingertips, relax your toes. Observe what it feels like to be more open.

Take a few more quiet breaths, allow yourself to relax, and work into that spine as well. Breathe and stay just for another five, four, three, two, and one.

Slowly, use your elbows gently — first, prop the head up, use your palms to slowly peel the chest off, and now it'll feel even more incredible to just keep that spine straight. Observe the sensation of just keeping the spine straight, and if you have any tingling sensations in the spine, we're going to work through it in a second.

Move your pillows or your blocks away, place your hands onto your ankles, shoulders back, as you lean your chin forwards. Just feel the stretch across the lower back and the lower hips. And on the exhale, just round the spine, hands sliding up to the knees, as you lean back. I'm going to move back and forth like this, as slowly as you can.

The only thing on your mind being: how can I release that tightness that's in my lower back or in my thighs? When we sit for long hours, that compression, that heaviness, creeps into our backs. But as you move in this slow, rhythmic way, with awareness about your body — don't even worry about how I'm moving, just stick to you. How is your spine feeling? How can you release that tightness?

Take this quiet space just for a couple of seconds more, spending extra time on the sides that are hurting more for you. Moving back and forth slowly, as we need, urging the spine to release that heaviness, urging your mind to slow down, urging the body to feel more ready to relax.

We're here just for another five — few more seconds you'll give. Four. Breathe in, sway; breathe in, sway — feeling it even in your neck, if you can, okay? Three, just be aware of your body, softly, slowly. Two, notice whichever side feels tense — if it's concave like this in your back, then so be it. But if it's more tense for you, or you're finding it harder to stay down here, then so be it — wherever it is, the most challenging, stay there for a few extra seconds. And four, one.

Slowly sitting up, really nice and straight, we're going to gently cross our legs, roll over, and come into this all-fours position, okay? Just make sure the palms are underneath the shoulders, the knees are underneath the hips.

Just going to take some simple cat and cow. So, drop the spine and then gently look up, opening your shoulder blades through the back. Then exhale, round the shoulders, pull the belly in, and look straight to your navel center. We're doing this again, so when you're ready, inhale, dropping the spine, gaze up to the sky, shoulders pulling back. And on the exhale, rounding the shoulders, scooping the navel in as you look inside. We do this one last time: when you're ready, dropping the spine, shoulders pull back, gaze up, lengthening the spine, just getting into this nice compression. When you exhale, you're rounding the shoulders, scooping the navel in as you gaze inside.

Now come into a neutral spine. We need to take some circles. So just dropping the spine down, lifting it through the left shoulder first, like you're pushing up, up, and then across to the right, and all the way down. We're going to do one more circle like this, so when you're ready: up to the left shoulder, over, and across to the right, and down to the floor.

Now we're going to reverse that circle, okay? So from the right shoulder, up and across — so that way, feeling that energy move and release — to the left, and drop. And we do it one last time: up to the right, over and across to the left, and down to the floor. Good?

From here, gently curl the toes, lift your gaze, lift your knees, and take a downward-facing dog. Pedal your legs — that just means bending one knee and straightening the other out — just feeling this stretch behind your legs, the ones that have been sitting or standing for too long. Just lengthen through the spine, your hip joints rising to the sky, for another three, two and one.

Look forward to your fingers and gently walk your hands back towards your feet. Grab hold of either elbow and just hang heavy, especially relax the neck — a lot of us don't know how to do it, but just look in through your feet, like you're trying to spot the wall or the ceiling through your legs. Just hang heavy, and that will lengthen the back of the thighs, the back of your legs.

The key in a forward fold is always to lean forwards, and sometimes that scares us, but it's the best way to go as deep as we can into the body. You can let the upper shoulders just sway, just using the weight of the upper body to see how long you can go. If you have a terribly tight lower back, you can even micro-bend the knee, but pull forwards through the elbows — whatever is comfortable for you, and whatever is giving you the nicest stretch. Just lengthen for a few more seconds, feeling it in the back of our bodies and the back of our spine. Just for another three, two, and one.

Release your hands, pull the knees in, and slowly rise up — take it as slowly as you need, like you're stacking one vertebra on the other. Your shoulders gently peeling open as your hands reach up all the way, slowly, up to the sky. Once you are reaching your hands up to the sky, I want you to bring them straight to your heart center.

When you just step your legs nice and wide — when you work into this side body, it also tends to get compressed — so reaching your hands up over the head and spreading them almost like a star. Tilt the hips to the left side, hand goes on the right side of the leg, and left hand parallel to the other side. Now the tendency of the body is to just go flat like this, but please don't — you'll just cause more pain, more tension. Roll open the chest, look up, and reach with your hands, almost like you're trying to touch somebody there, and you'll feel the stretch on the sides of the ribs.

You can go lower, stay just for another four, three — keep the body steady, gaze up for two and one — slowly pulling yourself back up, and we do the same on the opposite side. So the left hand stretches down, and then your right hand reaches up all the way to the sky and parallel — remember to peel that right shoulder open, reaching with your fingertips. Feeling the body open up and release whatever tightness it might be holding. Reach a little bit further for another three, a little bit more, like you're trying to touch somebody, for two, and last breath — one. Slowly pulling yourself back up and bringing your feet back together.

Thank you so much. I hope you're feeling a lot more relaxed and a lot more loose in your body.