Tired? Stressed? Tight sore achy muscles on a daily weekly basis? Kids not sleeping? Any of these sound like you? Please keep reading, there is something that can be done at home that can greatly help with all of these issues. Yoga. Specifically today we are going to be talking about the benefits of doing yoga at night and for kids. We’ve been doing this for a couple weeks now and we’ve noticed significant changes in ourselves and Anthony.
Stress is everywhere and its making us tired, irritable, losing sleep, and even making us sick! Scary, right? Doing a short, even 20-30 minute relaxing yoga routine at night time can help with all of those issues. One of the biggest ways that yoga helps is it helps break down stress hormones. When we have too many stress hormones in our blood stream it keeps the body in the fight or flight state of mind which leads to all those nasty symptoms we just talked about.
According to the Mayo Clinic this leads to: anxiety, depression, digestive issues, heart disease, weight gain, and memory and concentration impairment. All of that can happen just by letting your body be stressed out. By simply adding a yoga routine at night it will help bring our hormone levels back to where they should be make you feel better and improve your overall health.
The next big benefit is improved sleep. A Harvard study has shown that after two weeks of doing yoga, sleep efficiency, total sleep time, sleep onset latency, and wake time after sleep onset were all significantly improved. Wow! This is because you are increasing oxygen to your muscles and organs, improving blood flow, and calming your mind and body right before sleep. It literally affects not on the physical side of not being able to fall/stay asleep but the emotional component as well.
The great thing about all of this information is that it applies to kids as well. They get all the physical benefits but sometimes we forget just how riled up kids get over well, everything. As much fun as these things can be for them, this excitement/too much screen time can definitely affect their sleep in a negative way. We like to do a routine with Cosmic Kids Yoga with our 5 year old boy about an hour before bed time to wind down and keep up his flexibility (it is pretty fun family time too). Each yoga routine is centered around a different story from animals like Fernando the Silver fox to Frozen, and even a StarWars story and helps calm Anthony down to get him ready for bed. Sleep plays such a huge part in children’s ability to grow up healthy and maximize their learning potential. Regular yoga with kids has even shown to help with behavioral and cognitive issues as well.
Long story short, as long as you stick with an appropriate routine for your fitness level (if you suffer from any illness make sure to check with your medical doctor first before starting any exercise routine), there is nothing but benefits coming your way for you and your family!
My wonderful husband, D.J. wrote the above post for you! We are huge yoga enthusiasts, and wanted to share with Mom’s Bistro readers. Yoga makes a huge difference in our life and helps Anthony sleep through the night. There is no more asking for a cup of water, or to tell us a story or “I’m hungry”, the yoga routine just calms everyone down making for a good nights sleep.
This is NOT a sponsored post for Cosmic Kids Yoga, D.J. and I just really like the videos she shares! If you’re interested, here is a link to all of the videos on Cosmic Kids Yoga. Her videos are available on both her website and on YouTube! You’ll find a yoga routine that everyone will love. Jamie’s stories are so much fun you almost forget you’re even doing yoga!
Don’t you just love her jammies?
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