How Yoga Supports a Good Night’s Sleep

How Yoga Supports a Good Night’s Sleep
How Yoga Supports a Good Night's Sleep. Image source: Pixabay

Yoga is one of the best ways to maintain your health and fitness levels for a number of reasons. First of all, it helps to strengthen your core and boost your flexibility. Additionally, yoga is excellent for people who want to banish stress and find their inner sense of calm. However, while many people know some of the benefits that come with yoga, they don’t know one of the most important reasons to start practicing poses: yoga can help you sleep.

When people with insomnia and other sleep disorders like sciatica perform yoga on a regular basis, they’re more likely to sleep for longer, doze off faster, and fall asleep again if they woke up in the middle of the night. That’s even true for older people with insomnia too!

The benefit that yoga has on insomnia can be seen in a wider variety of situations where people might have trouble with their sleep. For instance, pregnant women who start yoga in their second trimester are less likely to wake up in the middle of the night. Here are 3 reasons why yoga promotes a good night’s sleep.

1. It Revives the Body

There are two primary ways in which yoga can revive the body. First of all, it helps to aid in the release of toxins that get stored in your organs and tissue. What’s more, yoga often includes complex breathing routines that can support the circulation of oxygen around the body, which is crucial for its repair and recuperation. Also, a quick yoga session before bedtime can seriously improve your sleeping pattern.

Start your yoga journey with a little bit of meditation, followed by a knees-to-chest pose, and a few gentle positions like a happy baby. Make sure that you keep your focus on your breathing as you move through each pose. Remember, the aim of yoga before bed isn’t to get a workout, but to open up your muscles, so you feel more relaxed.

2. Yoga Eliminates Anxiety and Stress

Stress and anxiety are issues that affect a lot of us in our day to day lives. According to one study, 70% of people suffering from anxiety and stress also have trouble with sleeping. Because yoga reduces the natural stress responses of the body, it can help to soothe your mind and calm you to the point where it’s easier for you to drift off at night. It even tackles simple kinds of uneasiness too.

You can help to reduce natural stress responses by slowing your heart rate and blood pressure. It also teaches you to focus on your breathing, so you’re less likely to hyperventilate. Yoga can also help to unwind the central nervous system, thereby eliminating some of the stress you’ve been holding onto throughout the day.

3. Yoga Improves Sleeping Quality

Finally, practicing yoga each day will not only improve your ability to fall asleep faster, but it could also mean that you get a better quality of sleep when you nod off each night.

In one study, patients struggling with insomnia were given some basic yoga training and asked to perform the same poses every day for a period of eight weeks. The researchers in the study discovered a significant improvement in several aspects of the participants’ sleep, including a reduction in the number of times that they woke up each night. Yoga provides the basis for a highly reliable, stress-free and healthy lifestyle. You don’t need to commit your whole day to yoga either – just a few minutes each day could be enough to transform your sleeping patterns.