Stretches with forward bends! They solved my insomnia problems! But, WHY?

[sherry7899]

Has anyone tried the "Yoga in Bed" dvd? I'm curious if it's similar to the practice Laura created.

Thanks!
Sherry

[debyduz]

Ok I am liking this. Could you ladies/men be so kind to list the DVDs that will help with the sleep so I can buy some. I have been having a rotten time falling and staying asleep and it is really making my days drag and workouts suffer.

Deb

[sherry7899]

Deb,

I can totally empathize with you, and since you care for children all day, it must be so difficult to get by on little sleep-sending hugs!

I have found ZYoga by Ann Dyer to be very helpful. Oh, and I just saw it being sold in Barnes and Noble, if you can't wait to order it online. I'll see if I can find any online coupons for you.

Best wishes-
Sherry

[sherry7899]

Here's a link for a 15% off coupon for barnes and noble:

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/thiswe....asp?pid=14876

I'll see if I can find any better ones-I swear, most weeks they email me ones for 20 or 25% off, but this weeks coupons are just for specific books, not general store coupons.

Sherry

[cheech]

Thanks Laura for your reply!

[KathAL79]

Laura, thanks for asking this question! I've always wanted to know the reason why forward bends are so calming and even sleep-inducing, too.
Yes, I know they're calming, soothing, relaxing, and cooling, but WHY? What's the physical process(es) that cause this to happen? Erich Schiffmann's explanation helps a lot, but I still want to know a little more, since my SO's in the medical field and still not sure what I mean when I ask him to explain.

Deby, see Sharon's post above for a good list of yoga programs tailored to fit this need.

I've personally used the following:
Barbara Benagh's Yoga for Stress Relief - Letting Go of Your Day, Insomnia Issues
Ann Dyer's ZYoga

Other evening yoga programs include the following:
Ravi Singh & Ana Brett's AM-PM Yoga - PM yoga segment
Yoga Radiance - Lunar segment

Yoga programs not particularly tailored towards insomnia relief but still include a number of forward bends and other relaxing poses include the following:
Kathleen Anderson's Yoga in the Garden of Serenity (especially if you hold the forward bend instead of doing some of her circular movements)
Baxter Bell's Yoga Journal Yoga for Stress - stress relief
J J Gormley's Yoga for Every Body - various segments, including the menstruation and several of beginner ones especially
Rainbeau Mars' Pure Tranquility
Judi Rice's Yoga for Inflexible People - various segments, including the mensturation and hip / lower body sequences
Karen Voight's Yoga Focus (now Yoga Power; also found on Sleek Physique, now Slim Physique) - stretch

If you're creative and quick with the remote, you could probably also skip around in programs like Erich Schiffmann's Backyard Series: Beginning Yoga, Tilak Pyle's Altar of the Heart, Eoin Finn's Power Yoga for Happiness, Darryl DeWald's Being in Yoga, and other similar programs that often have floor sections near the beginning and/or end that have a lot of forward bends. The warm-up and savasanas from Katy Appleton's Geri Yoga and Geri Body Yoga also can work, if I remember correctly.

[KathAL79]

delete - double post due to computer probs

[smith938]

I've only done the yoga in bed dvd once (and dang near hurt myself!) but odn't have the book so have no idea if it's the same or not. All I know is that the woman leading it had better props in her bed than me and didn't have 2 big doggies jockeying for prime spots! again, anothe rone I keep meaning to get back to but haven't yet!

[yogini_michelle]

Originally Posted by KathAL79

Laura, thanks for asking this question! I've always wanted to know the reason why forward bends are so calming and even sleep-inducing, too.
Yes, I know they're calming, soothing, relaxing, and cooling, but WHY? What's the physical process(es) that cause this to happen? Erich Schiffmann's explanation helps a lot, but I still want to know a little more, since my SO's in the medical field and still not sure what I mean when I ask him to explain.

Hopefully i don't stumble this too much. I'm not very good at explaining science stuff even if i get it in my head. So just add this to the Erich Shiffman stuff: Emotional stress (depression, anger, fear, etc) actually causes distinct changes in the bio chemistry of the brain which can appear as physical ailments sometimes (including insomnia). The "bad stress" can actually affect the cardiovascular system to work harder and less effectively, making it harder for the demands of O2 to get where it needs. (which is one of the reasons why they say when you are stressed count backwards by 10 and take a deep breathe to get my O2 to the brain.) The systems of the body start to focus on fighting the effects of stress rather than to take care of the body. There is good stress (joy, happyiness, love etc) that have positive changes on the biochemisty of the brain which has the heart pumping slower and with more effect.

Now that you have that...more techinical and maybe what you want to ask your SO is to go into the Autonomic Nervous System's two division -- The Sympathetic Nervous System( The fight or flight response to stress which neurotransmitters are the adrenaline and the noradrenaline) and the Parasympathetic Nerviys System (reverses the stress response).

So if someone is always in or near the sympathic response with the "bad stress" the nervous system isn't getting "fed, nourished, and healed" to tie into Erich's theory. And since these particular nerves have origins along the spine (sympathic to the lumbar region and para sympathic to the brain steam and sacral regions), making space, breathing into this area, lengthening the muscles, releasing the tension held in that area...helps in moving into the para sympathic response which when one is there i believe a hormone or a chemical is released in the brain (i won't even attempt to spell it because it will be so butchered it won't be funny). will yoga help all insominia with this? nah because everyone's root of stress or the reason why can be different. but there is no real harm in it.

Think of it in the same way why people can sometimes feel sleepy after a massage therapy session.

[Lianne]

Oh - I can't pass this question up. This is an area of interest for me -I did a paper for my MEd on using yoga to promote stress reduction in teachers.

To add to what Michelle has said about forward bends activating the parasympathetic nervous system:

In yoga terminology one would say that forward bends decrease the Prana (masculine, energizing, upward flowing energy) and increase the Apana (feminine, calming, downward flowing energy) which may be the same thing as the sympathetic vs. parasympathetic.

If one is approching it from a western scientific mind, I think there are two crucial things that happen in forward bends that cause the parasympathetic to be activated. First, all vulnerable parts of the body are protected. When humans stood up on to two legs there was a trade off in that unlike other mammals, our "soft spots" (internal organs, throast, genitals) were well exposed to any predators. We compensated for this vulnerability in other ways, but there is still a primitive part of our brain that finds comfort in the closing and protection of these vulnerable bits. Second, and more importantly, for most people the breath naturally slows down in forward bends without any concious effort to do so - and the exhale becomes longer than the inhale which is a known key for activating the parasympathetic nervous system.