good morning yogis welcome this morning i'm going to take you through a 10-minute practice great for stress and anxiety relief so yoga is a wonderful tool if you are needing to calm down your nervous system i'm going to show you what my favorite poses and sequences are when i'm personally dealing with a little bit of stress and anxiety today is also day 7 of this 30 day morning yoga movement so if you've been participating in this challenge with me since the beginning give yourself a huge pat on the back for making it to the end
of week one if you're just new or you just found this video and you'd like to join you can do so at any point in time just click the link down below in the description box or look for the day zero video which i'll also link down below you can also just do this video on its own whenever you're experiencing times of stress so we are going to need one block for a practice and we're going to start with it right away so lower down and we'll come into supported bridge pose and i like to
use it on its first level so as you come down just lift your hips and place that block underneath the hips in a way that's comfortable for your low back and just let your feet be flat on the floor roll your shoulders down and away from your ears so a very gentle inversion allowing our hips to be higher than the heart and any kind of poses that you can do reclined so laying down close to the earth are going to be really soothing in times of stress and anxiety so grounding poses are really wonderful and
we also want to use our breath so slow steady breaths in and out through the nose in each class in this morning yoga movement program uses a different affirmation today's affirmation is i am at peace with life i am at peace with life so try to repeat this affirmation to yourself a few times throughout our practice and also throughout the rest of your day keep your block under your hips and you're just going to draw your right knee in towards your belly and straighten your left leg out in front of you and you might take
a few ankle rolls with your right foot stretching and pointing through your toes just getting a little bit of motion here i am at peace with life and let's switch sides draw your left knee in stretch your right leg out and find those same little angle rolls with your left foot this time see if you can soften your neck your jaw your shoulders a little more and now one of my best favorite poses in times of stress is waterfall so just straightening and lifting your legs up towards the sky allowing your legs to be weightless
and the upper body to be grounded go ahead and bend your knees gently feet come flat to the floor and you can lift the uh your hips to move your block off to the side draw your knees into your belly give it a big squeeze now let's come into a child's pose so you can rock up big toes together and knees apart you can go as wide as you would like here arms stretched out in front of you soften your head that third eye the chest down towards the mat child's pose is another really wonderful
pose in times of stress a great way to be grounded and close to the earth it's almost as if you could just release all of your worries letting it go every time you exhale and we'll come up tabletop pose go ahead and just step your right foot forward in between your palms to the top of the mat into your lunge and you can just come up onto your fingertips here so right knee is on top of your ankle and think of pressing your hips forward and down opening up through your chest and you might close
your eyes here if you notice yourself getting distracted or caught up in some internal dialogue or stories just come back to the flow of your breath one more inhale here and push into your right heel to straighten the leg and you might stay here in your half splits or one way that i like to do it is to just let my hips come all the way back onto my heel and fold from here making this more of a passive fold so i'm not worrying about pushing or pulling or having a straight spine i'm letting myself
surrender into the pose forward folds are really therapeutic for the parasympathetic nervous system so the part of our nervous system which allows us to rest and digest pretty much what we want when we're feeling anxious or stressed so relax it down one more breath and start to come back up and bend into that front knee once more and we'll step up into your squat so left foot comes in heels in toes out bend the knees hands at your heart as you push your knees open a little bit wider and broaden up through your chest think
of lengthening your spine crown of your head moving away from your tailbone forward fold ragdoll as you lift the hips up and you can absolutely keep your knees bent here it does not need to be perfectly straight let your head dangle and we'll step back downward facing dog palms shoulder width distance apart feet hip width distance apart get a great big stretch here through your legs through your spine let's inhale to our plank pose and just bring your knees down on the floor before lowering all the way down to your belly with your toes pointed
back and we'll come into sphinx so just slide your forearms out in front of you palms flat to the floor and open up through your chest maybe coming back to our affirmation for this practice i am at peace with life take one more full breath in release tabletop pose we'll set up for a lunge on the second side step your left foot forward aligning your knee over your ankle opening up through your chest soften your shoulders down the reason yoga is so beneficial also for stress and anxiety is because it keeps us in the present
moment so this practice of mindfulness not worrying about what's already happened or not worrying about what may happen in the future instead just staying focused on your experience right here right now into that hamstring stretch push into your left heel and maybe stay up nice and high or you can drop all the way down onto your right foot folding from there making this a passive fold i'm lifting back up let's come back into our squats so step the right foot forward heels and toes out about as wide as your mat hands together at the front
of the heart lift up ragdoll fold release and instead of going to our down dog we'll do something a little different here bend your knees generously and roll all the way up to stand inch by inch and come into mountain pose so you'll want your feet to be hip width distance apart palms shining forward and close your eyes so as you lift up through the arches of the feet with your eyes closed go ahead and lean all the way forward to the balls of the feet and then all the way to the right all the
way to the back over to the left and then make your way to center finding that even point let's take a little flow inhale arms rise fall down release halfway lift flat back exhale let's just go to down dog right away stretching out nice and long in your downward facing dog and into your child's pose big toes together knees as wide as you would like them to be let your forehead rest down towards the mat i am at peace with life and lock your hands in i'm just sitting on your heels and this little kneeling
stance you can bring your knees in so you're about hip with distance apart we'll just take a little twist from here left hand towards your right knee you can bring your right hand to your low back as you open up and exhale switch sides right hand to the outer thigh left hand behind you coming forward interlace your palms flip the palms up inhale reach and exhale let it go and take a seat anyway that's comfortable to you here sitting up tall roll your shoulders back let's bring our hands together at the front of the heart
setting this intention for the day i am at peace with life big breath in through the nose and out the mouth [Applause] bowing forward namaste thank you so much yogis for doing this day 7 10 minute stress and anxiety morning yoga practice i hope you find it beneficial please leave me a comment down below you can use good morning so that i know you're part of the morning yoga movement and hopefully i'll practice again with you tomorrow morning you are not done yet i would love for you to click on this video right here to
do a five minute guided affirmation meditation also click the link down below right here in order to be notified of every new video that i release part of this morning yoga movement thank you again and i'll see you tomorrow
