Gentle yoga is focused on moving the body slowly into accessible and relaxing yoga postures. The slower pace of a gentle yoga practice gives time for you to really explore the yoga poses and how they feel in your body. Making it a great yoga practice to do in the evening and for beginners.
Want to find out if a gentle evening yoga practice is something for you? Practice along with my 20 minute gentle evening yoga practice.
Gentle Yoga Flow Sequence
An evening yoga routine can be a helpful way to release tension in your body, relax your mind, and prepare yourself for a good night’s sleep.
Try out creating your own gentle yoga flow sequence to practice at home using the below yoga poses for inspiration.
It’s completely up to you how long you spend in each pose. You could choose to spend anywhere from 5 breaths (around 30 seconds) to 2 - 5 minutes in a given pose. And take even longer in your meditation and relaxation.
Seated Meditation
Starting your gentle yoga practice with seated meditation can be a great way to check in to how your body, breath, and mind are feeling.
You could focus in on your breath and use it as a point of concentration. Doing your best to be present and still.
Child’s Pose
The child’s pose is a great way to gently open your hips, release tension from your back, and find an internal focus.
If your knees feel a little sensitive you could place a blanket underneath. While if hips feel quite tight you could try resting your head and chest on a bolster or cushion.
Low Lunge Pose
When we spend a lot of time sitting our hip flexors at the front of our hips can get chronically tight. Therefore it can feel very relieving to stretch and open them at the end of the day.
You can place extra padding like a blanket under your back knee if there feels too much pressure. Also by choosing to step your front foot forward you can intensify the stretch, while if you bring your front foot closer to your back knee you can ease out of the stretch.
Bound Angle Pose
Bound angle pose is a great posture to help open your hips and allow our upper body to become heavy and relaxed.
Once you’ve found your position you can bring your awareness towards your breathing and allow each breath to be slow, deep and steady.
Particularly see if you can relax your shoulders and belly. Areas that tend to be under unnecessary stress throughout the day.
Supine Twist
Back pain and tension is unfortunately quite common. This supine twist can be a great way to gently release tension and tightness in the muscles around our back.
You can experiment with how close you bring your knees into your chest and if you want to use any cushions to support under your knees.
Allow the rest of your body to be heavy so that you can find relaxation in the pose.
Savasana Relaxation
You can finish your gentle yoga practice with a relaxation lying on your back in Savasana. Finding a place where your body can be completely comfortable and entire body can be heavy.
You could experiment with resting your legs up the wall. This allows your lower back to be grounded and help the legs relax. This option is particularly useful if you’ve spent a lot of time on your feet or have tension in your back.
Gentle Yoga Tips for Evening Practice
Feel free to experiment with your gentle evening yoga sequence. Trying out different yoga poses and amounts of time you spend in them.
If you’re a beginner and less familiar with the yoga poses I’d suggest to first try practicing a few times with a guided gentle yoga practice for beginners. And then once you feel more comfortable with approaching these yoga poses you could try them out on your own.
Happy practicing!
X Irene
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