The Dreaming by Paul Gauguin

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?



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