By Claire Diab and Dennis Boyle
There are many things you can do to create a higher quality of life and better health through yoga; this includes improving your sleeping patterns. Sleep in a key part of a healthy lifestyle and the benefits can affect your heart, weight, mood, and much more.
Restful sleep can also:
- Improve Memory–If you are learning a new task, you will perform better and retain more information after a good night’s sleep.
- Curb Inflammation–Inflammation is linked to heart disease, stroke, arthritis and diabetes. Research shows that people who get less than six hours of restful sleep have higher blood levels of inflammatory proteins.
- Clearer Thinking–Sleep loss affects how you think, impairing your cognition, attention, and decision making. Loss of sleep also increases your chances of making odd mistakes, like losing your keys or misplacing your phone.
- So now that we know sleep is important, how can we make sure we are getting enough of it? Many times we have trouble sleeping because we are worried or anxious in our busy daily lives.
This is where yoga can help! By lowering your stress levels, calming the mind, and relieving tension in the body, you can create an effective and natural remedy to fix your sleeping patterns.
There are many poses to aid in sleep; this is one of my favorites: Matsyasana (maht-see-yah-sah-nah)
Fish Pose Variation I
- Lying on your back, place both hands over your heart. Bring your knees up so the soles of your feet are on the floor.
- Now, slowly lower your knees toward the floor, keeping your feet together. Gently bring your heels toward your body. Breathe deeply into your belly. Relax with each exhalation.
- Take 6 to 10 deep breaths then slowly extend your knees and rest on your back.
Fish Pose creates space around your heart and heart chakra and allows love and compassion to flow more freely and effortlessly to you and from you. You will begin to feel a sense of lightheartedness, peace, happiness, and joy.
Enjoy this pose at the end of the day, right before bed. You will sleep beautifully, as this pose will have rejuvenated, revitalized, and restored every single cell in your body.
Enjoy, Sweet Dreams!
Claire Diab is an internationally recognized Yoga therapist. She is the director of the Yoga Program for the Chopra Center founded by Dr. Deepak Chopra and Dr. David Simon. She is an adjunct professor of Asian Studies at Seton Hall University. She is the author of several books and DVDs on Yoga including “Yoga For Firefighters.”
Dennis Boyle is a retired fire director and acting chief with the West Orange (NJ) Fire Department. He was the recipient of the 1999 New Jersey Deputy Fire Chiefs “Fire Officer of the Year” award.
