Breathing with intention...helps shift your viewpoint and your nervous system.

I've found myself practicing Dirgha Pranayama ("3-part breathe) a lot this week.

Breathing is a right we're given from birth, but only after delving deeper into my yoga practice did I recognize how little I was optimizing my available life force, or prana, and at least once a day I find myself bringing my awareness to my breath with this mindful practice. It's a somewhat complex breath that I've seen students hyperventilate trying to do "right". But at its root, it's simply about being mindful of the inhale and exhale and guiding the breathe up your spine that helps to encourage a serenity that envelopes your senses during less-than-serene moments in the day.

• Inhale, grabbing the breath from the base of your spine and allowing it to naturally rise to your abdomen, rib cage and lungs as you slowly count to 3. 
• Exhale, noticing how the breathe glides back down to your core (also known as root chakra or coccyx), gently massaging your organs as you count to 4, pulling your navel towards your spine to expel any nervous or unwanted energy. 
• Repeat 3-5 times and notice the shift in your mind-body-spirit.

I've found that after about five breathes like this; my anxiety lessens, my mind clears a bit more, my shoulders inch further down from being up by my ears, and it becomes easier to look compassionately at the guy who just picked his nose before grabbing a hold of the subway car railing that I'm holding onto as well. (And even better, it's taking your yoga off the mat and into your real life...you did the work, might as well use it!)

Photo is a dramatization of the above noted episode and sourced from The NY Times

Music also helps, and Dirgha pranayama sounds a bit like this to me: Bliss "Blissful Moment"

Supine Supported Butterfly

I do this stretch almost every night before I fall asleep, and first thing when I wake up. Because you can do it very easily in bed still under the covers.

I love hip-opening poses, because whether you're sitting on a plane, train, bus, car, or just at your desk for most of the day, hip-openers help to release a lot of the tension that gets held in your pelvis and lower back.  My philosophy of back pain (I'm a chronic sufferer) is that any tension or tightness in the lower part of your body, and especially in your hips and pelvis, builds and expands to lower/mid/upper back and neck. Everyone has a theory, this is just mine. Anyway...

Supine Baddha Konasana:

• Lie on your back, bend your knees and position a pillow directly under where each knee will "fall" to the sides. 
• Bring the soles of your feet together, letting the knees rest on top of the pillows. (It doesn't matter how far or close to your body your feet are, as long as they are sole-to-sole.
• Inch your shoulders closer together, trying to get your shoulder blades flat on the mattress.
• A small pillow under your neck might feel really good.
• Focus your breathing on expanding the rib cage on the inhale (think pregnant lady lying down for a visual), and bring your navel towards your spine on the exhale. 
• To come out of the pose, place feet flat on the bed, knees bent, and turn to one side, hugging one of the pillows that was under a knee, and resting in this fetal-like position for about a minute.

Sourced from DallasNews.com

Benefits of this restorative pose:

• Lessens restrictions in upper body to allow for freer breathing. (Great if you've been on a plane where air quality is low and you might have a tendency to shorten your breath because of anxiety or just too many people in one space-I have to fight against doing this.) 
• Opens the hips, groin, and pelvic floor to support a healthy lower back and release tension held from sitting in cramped spaces. (Great after, say, a 6 hour bus ride without any stops.)
• Tones the digestive organs. (A gentle belly massage from ascending to descending colon promotes clearing of any energy blockages.)

So if you're not a fan of stretching out on hotel floors, this is a great pose for you to do to help achieve your peak performance during travel or any day of the week. 

Monday morning is worse if you can't fall asleep on Sunday night

I turned off the light and was looking forward to falling asleep around 11:30pm last night. Instead at 1am I was still awake and wondering what a girl has to do to pass out these days...

So I rolled myself into Supported Garbhasasana (Child's pose) using my pillow. Fun fact: Garbha means fetus in Sanskrit. (This is the pose without a prop just as a visual reference.)

Sourced from YogaJournal.com

Here's how:

Position your pillow lengthwise in front of you, and come into Table pose (hands on either side of the pillow, knees apart). Extend back onto your heels, your big toes touching, your knees still on either side of the pillow. Rest your head to one side (it will be slightly lower unless you use another pillow to rest your head on). Deepen your breathing by inhaling slowly to the count of 3, and exhaling to the count of 4 (you're also massaging your organs as they press gently against the pillow).

Child's pose is a restorative pose in general; it's known to heal, relax and rejuvenate the entire body and using the pillow as a prop it's even more supportive. It must have worked, cause I don't remember anything else after that.

So if you're fighting with insomnia and the bugger is beating you, try it before you pop an Ambien and end up waking up with a hangover two hours later than your alarm was set for. (Or is that just me?)