Yoga for stress management and inner balance 💚

Hello, Anya here. Welcome to this yoga class for stress management and inner balance. When talking about inner balance, if it is hormonal balance or overall health and well-being, I believe stress management is the most important thing to start with, because we work at such a grey space in our culture. We value much more doing, achieving, than simply being. And although we don't run every day from tigers, we live in a constant fight or flight response. This leads to overproduction of cortisol, the stress hormone, which affects our body function. It affects our sleep, our metabolism, our immune system, just to mention a few. What we need is a break. But because we've been constantly living in this fight and flight response, we don't know how to relax, because when we have a break at work, our mind is spinning. If we have a day off, our mind will make sure to keep us occupied. And as a result, we become tired, we cannot sleep, and there is more and more imbalances, unless we learn how to access this parasympathetic nervous system, which is responsible for rest, digest and heal. And that's what you learn with yoga. By bringing the awareness to our body, to our breath, by slowing down and staying longer in the poses, and by being open to feel more subtle sensations within our body, we learn how to enter this holistic way of being. And this generally doesn't come immediately. Being programmed for action and achievement, many people choose fast, dynamic variations of yoga, and they see it purely as a physical exercise. And of course, physical exercise is very healthy. However, yoga takes us much further when coming to addressing the stress and resetting our nervous system. Therefore, this yoga class is an invitation to be patient, to slow down, to be present with yourself, with your breath, and simply in peace. So let us come to a comfortable seated position. And just bring your awareness to your body. Feel the contact of your buttocks, of your pelvis on the ground. If this is not comfortable for you, just come and start on your chest. The spine nice and tall. Open the chest. Chin slightly in so you can feel this lengthening on the back of your neck. And close your eyes. Bring your awareness to your breath. First, just observe your breath naturally, how it expresses itself. And try to deepen your breath. So with each inhalation, you want to encourage this expansion in the abdomen and in the chest. And follow with a slow and mindful exhalation. Inhale through the nose. Expand your abdomen and the chest. And follow with a slow exhalation through the mouth. Nice and controlled. And let's commit to be present here and now. Let's come back with our body, our breath and our entire being. And let us start with a couple of warm-ups. So bring your chin towards the chest. And we slowly start rotating the head first towards the right shoulder. Very, very slow and ample movement all the way around. Exploring the range of movement of your neck. And as we do it, we try to keep our shoulders relaxed. And then we change the direction of the movement counterclockwise. Nice and slow. Very good. And come to the natural balance position. Close your eyes. Just observe the effect of this exercise, the subtle sensations in your neck, fluidity in the neck area. And now we will synchronize the movement with the breath. So when we inhale, we draw the chest forward, we look up. And when we exhale, we turn the spine backwards, head down. Inhale, draw the shoulders back, chest forward, look up. Exhale, shoulders coming forward, head down. Stretch on the back. Continue this way. Keep it nice and slow. When we inhale, we open the front of the abdomen and chest. And go. And when we exhale, we stretch the whole back and in the lungs. Complete. Very good. And come to a comfortable still position. Soften the shoulders and the neck. Feel the effect of this exercise, especially on the spine. Increase fluidity to the spine. Flexibility in the spine. And now we will continue with bhajansana. So bring your feet together and knees to the side. And see if you can bring your feet towards the pelvis. If you don't, or if you feel that you are curving your back too much, you can keep your feet a little bit away from your body. But then you might want to use a strap. Feel the length here. So you can keep your back nice and tall. Okay? If you can bring your feet closer to your body, you might be just all right by holding the front of your feet. Relax your hips. Don't try to achieve heel too much. Just relax your hips as much as possible. Keep your spine nice and tall. And we start with this gentle movement, butterfly movement. Close your eyes. Stay with awareness in the root chakra, pelvic area. Simply sensing the space in your pelvis. Sensing the energy, the connection with the ground, with the earth. Loosening up the hips. And now stop the movement. Again, relax your hips. Just let them be where they are. And again, orient your awareness to the pelvic area. And also be aware of your breath. Now with each inhalation, we want to send the breath and the energy all the way to the pelvis. And with exhalation, let the energy flow upwards on the spine. Inhale, drawing the energy all the way down to the pelvic floor. And exhale, letting it go upwards on the spine. Nice and slow. Feeling the sensations in your pelvis. Sensing the energy. The vital, healthy energy. Sense of being grounded. Connection with the earth. And now, you can delete the position. And let us come on all fours to the table top position. And we will continue with Marjariyasana, the calf and cow stretch. So again, we synchronize movement with the breath. So when we inhale, we draw the abdomen down. And we look up. Keeping bones are going up too. And when we exhale, we curve the spine upwards. The head is going between the arms. Table down. And when we inhale, opposite. Opening the tromboid, abdomen, chest, throat. And when we exhale, we draw the belly button towards the spine and in the lungs. Head down. And keep going this way. Nice and slow. Make sure that your breath is slow so you can explore this movement. Explore this stretch. Deepening the breath. And slowing down the exhalation. This slowing down of exhalation triggers this parasympathetic nervous system. Rest. Digest and close. Slow and mild. And that's enough. Let's come to the neutral position just for a moment. Toes here to feel the effect of this exercise. Mostly at the level of the spine. The energizing of the spine. And the whole back. Deepening the breath. And calming the mind. And now let us come on the kneeling position. And we will continue with Shasasana. So bring your hands behind your back and interlock your fingers. And pull your hands away from the body. Drawing the chest forward. And now we lift our buttocks up and we bring the head on the ground. So this area where the forehead meets the head. The front part of the head. Lifting the buttocks up. Hands go up to the sky. Stay with the breath nice and slow. Drawing the energies to your whole body all the way to the crown chakra. The top of the head. The palms are active. Stay with awareness. The top of the head. Again, fencing your steps. Fencing the energy. And that's enough. Slowly release the position by bringing the buttocks towards the ground. Release your arms. Bring your arms in a comfortable position. Maintain your forehead on the ground. Don't bring your head up after doing Sasasana. Just rest here. Hold your breath. Find the rest. Slowing down the breath. Staying with awareness. And the crown chakra is placed at the top of the head. And the bottom. Simply fencing the energies. Fencing the whole way to the sky. And now, let us come to the lying down position on the abdomen. The hands are just above the shoulders. The chin in a gentle contact with the ground. And let's centralize all our being in the middle of the chest, in the heart. Allow your breath to flow in and out of the heart space. Observing the sensations in your chest. The sensations in inhalation and exhalation. Just observe. And now, on the next inhalation, we lift the head and chest up. And we stay on the forearms. Forearms are parallel to each other. Sphinx pose. We create a nice smooth curve with the spine. So, avoid bending at any particular point. Draw your shoulder blades down. Lengthen the neck. Open the chest. And close your eyes. Stay with the awareness in the chest area. In this position, we are receiving the energy from above directly in the heart center, in the middle of the chest. So, stay with the sense of openness in the chest and receiving in the heart. If you find yourself that your head starts sinking towards the ground between the shoulders, just push your elbows against the ground and lengthen your neck. Head up. Keep your neck nice and long. If there is some old injury in the neck, you might want to keep the head a little bit forward. You can stay here. From there, you can release your body on the hands. If you have done the full Bhujangasana before, maintain this nice smooth curve of the spine. Draw the shoulder blades down. Open the chest. Stay with the breath. Feeling the sensations of your breath in the chest, in the heart center. Nice and slowly, very slowly, release the position. Make a cushion with your hands for the forehead. Relax here. Allow your head to gently rock from side to side. Release any tension in the neck. Nice and slow. Also, if you feel any tension in the lower back and you want to rock your hips from side to side, release any tension in your hips and the lower back. Find a comfortable still position. Close your eyes. Observe the effect of this asana, the physical effect of this backward bend, especially at the level of the back. But especially, pay attention to the sensations in the chest, in the heart center. Activation of this Anahata chakra, which might bring affective mood or elevated emotions. Deep internal calming. Calming from the heart. And now we lift our body one more time on all fours. And we stretch our back upwards. As you come to stretch to the tip, then you join the asana. And again, roll the buttocks towards the heels and rest here in yoga asana. If you are protecting your knees and you find it difficult to come so low, you can stay in the puppy pose on your forearms and your buttocks out. So that's alternative. You can bring the cushion under your forehead, so your forehead will contact the ground. And relax. Maintaining this stretch on the lower back, so that the shoulders and neck are completely relaxed. Bring your awareness to the chest area. The heart center. Connecting with the stillness of the heart. The stillness deep in the heart. Slowing down the breath. Sinking into the stillness of the heart. And that's enough. Slowly release the position. We will continue with Sarvangasana, the shoulder stand. And if you are a complete beginner or you don't want to do the full shoulder stand, there is an alternative with bringing the legs up. And you might want to have a cushion handy for this. So let us lie down on the back. And let me show you the variation first, so you can decide what you are going for. Also if you want to try the shoulder stand. So just lie down, just make sure that your neck is nice and long here. Also you might want to keep a blanket folded under the whole back and neck. As a support for cushioning. That's alternatively. Keep your knees bent. And just let me show you first. And we kick our legs up. Lifting the buttocks up. And we support the back here. Keeping the legs nice and stretched out. Okay. So this position for beginners might feel really uncomfortable in the neck and shoulders. Especially if there is some neck injury. You shouldn't be trying to do it on the online session. So then the alternative will be bringing the cushion under the pelvis. Ideally also supporting the lower back. And simply lifting the legs up. So in this way we are reversing our body. Similarly like in Sarvangasana. So we draw the energy from the legs all the way to the throat chakra. Also energizing the head. This is a very mild easy variation. Just try to relax the legs as much as possible. Also if you want to do it in a more relaxing way. You can bring your thumb near the wall and rest your feet on the wall. That will be super relaxed. Okay. So choose the variation you want to do today. And if you are coming for the full Sarvangasana. Align your position first. Balance. Body balance. Head and neck. And now keep your necks up. Buttocks up. We support first lower back. Try to bring the elbows towards each other. It will be stronger support for your butt. And also there are options. You might want to at first do it with the pelvis backwards and feet forwards. That's an easy variation. There is a little bit less pressure on the neck. You can go to the full shoulder stance. Putting your body in the one straight line. The legs are stretched but the feet are relaxed. Receiving the energy from above. Which descends through the legs. Spine. All the way to the throat chakra. That's where our awareness rests. Okay. So. And when you need to release, do it gently. Slowly. With control. Bring the feet a little bit forwards. And now walk your hands a little bit towards the hips. And slowly, slowly. Vertigo by vertigo. Bring the body down to the ground. Stretch your legs. And relax here in Savasana. Slowing down the breath. Feeling this continuation of this flow of energy up towards the throat. It's a great position when we reverse our body upside down. It's like we are reversing our biological clock. And bringing more vitality. More blood to the head. To the brain. To the throat. There is awareness. Throat. And the head. Soften. Short. And now we will continue with Matsyasana. The fish pose. So for this asana we might also want to use a cushion. So. You might want to put a cushion under your chest. Put your cushion like this or a little bit higher. Might be more comfortable. So just to cover the upper back and the neck. And we bring the elbows very close to the cushion. And we bring the hands under the buttocks. And we open the chest. Upwards. Lengthening the chest and the neck. And drawing the head towards the ground. And here your head can rest on the cushion. If it's a long cushion that's perfectly fine. Or you can maintain your head a little bit off the ground. Or you can touch the ground. Depending how comfortable it is for you at this stage. If this is not comfortable at all you can bring your elbows away. And just rest your upper body on the cushion. And then bring your arms to the side. And just open the chest. And start action. And just rest here. So that's one variation. Or you can bring the elbows on the ground. And start to lift the head up. Laying the head on the ground. A little bit off the ground. If it's more comfortable. Open the chest. Opening the throat. As it comes across to the Sarvangasana. Shoulders down. Close up. Nice and slow breath. With each inhalation opening up your throat body. And nice and slow mindful exhalation. Drawing the energy to your body all the way to the throat chakra. And that's enough. So at this position we lift the head up. Nice and long neck. And now we can remove the cushion. And we can bring the back down on the ground. And relax in this position. Just observing the effect of this energizing. Even more stronger energizing of the throat, the head, the face. Nice and slow breath. And now let us come to the seated position. Cross that sitting position or if it's not comfortable on the chest. We'll continue with Pranayama. Nadi Shodhana Pranayama. Which is a great balancing breathing technique. For balancing the left and right brain hemisphere. And also balancing the nervous system. And calming the mind. So we'll keep the left hand in the lap. And we use the fingers of the right hand to clock one nostril at a time. So we start by putting the thumb over the right nostril. And we inhale through the left. And when we finish we close the left. And then we open the right nostril and we exhale slowly through the left. Nice and slow. And when we finish we inhale through the right. We close the right nostril. And we exhale through the left. And again when we finish we inhale through the left. And then we close the left, open the right. Exhale through the left. And continue this way. Keep your breath nice and slow. And soundly. After each inhalation you can pause for one second before you start exhaling. And after each exhalation again you can pause for one second before you start inhaling. You might notice that the breath flows much easier on one side. That's quite normal. Keep going, just try to do the best you can. This will eventually unblock the other nostril. There is awareness of your breath. There are sensations in your nostril on inhalation and on exhalation. And when you next exhale through the left nostril, you can release your hand at the top of the left. And continue breathing naturally. Just observe the effects of this pranayama, of this breathing exercise. The calming effect on your mind. The balancing of the mind. Deep internal stillness. And don't forget to finish with spinal relaxation. So come to the Dushavasana. So legs and arms apart. Palms facing upwards. And just check that your body is symmetrical and balanced. And close your eyes. And at first just stay with awareness of your breath. How with each inhalation you are receiving energy, the light force, the radiance which spreads through your whole body. And with each exhalation releasing any tension, any restrictions. With each inhalation bringing more lightness and spaciousness to your body. And with each exhalation releasing any heaviness. Keep your body soft and light. And continue by relaxing your body. Starting from the feet up to every part of your body, every muscle of your body. All the way up to the head. Allow 5 minutes for this process. Or alternatively, continue with the meditation which comes up on the screen now. If you enjoy this practice, subscribe to my channel and see you on the next film.