Wellness tips for the Winter Holiday Season: Make time for rest and relaxation!

Wellness tips for the Winter Holiday Season:  Make time for rest and relaxation.

 

As the days grow shorter with the winter solstice approaching and the holiday season in full swing, it is important to take time to relax and let go of stress and busyness. Spend some time each day in the quiet.    Start with 1 to 5 minutes of relaxed breathing.  Sitting in a comfortable position, with a long spine, practice breathing slowly, smoothly and deeply.    Then move on to a relaxation practice or 1 or more restorative poses.  

 

When you have at least 25 minutes consider doing a yoga nidra practice.  Two of my favorites are Relax into Greatness led by Rod Stryker and Yoga Nidra II with Robin Carnes.  For a 15 minute practice, I like any of Rolf Sovik’s Guided Yoga Relaxations.    Restorative poses that open your heart and chest are especially nice during this season.  A simple one is Bridge pose with a block under your sacrum.  The Open Chest pose pictured below is another simple pose that helps counterbalance the closed chest posture that we get from working at a computer and poor posture from rounding the upper back, sometimes called Slumpasana.  To start you can stay in the restorative poses for 2 to 3 minutes.  If your chin is much higher than your forehead, put a blanket under your head.  

Another of my favorite restoratives for opening the heart is reclined butterfly pose, see the picture.

  Stay in this pose for 5 to 10 minutes. The sandbags are optional, and you can use 2 blankets in lieu of the bolster I am lying on.

 

Here is a poem by Danna Faulds that you can read as you come into a relaxing pose.

 

Release

 

I lay myself down

on the welcoming

ground, the earth’s

spine becoming mine.

Peace seeps into

heavy limbs and

slows my heartbeat

to the pace of

nature.  I take refuge

in the quiet, and let

my burdens go,

one by one, until

the earth and I

both float in the

same vast and

holy silence.