10-Minute Morning In Bed Yoga Sequence, 6 Poses, To Start The Day Gloriously
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Jennie T
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- Categories: Yoga For Stress & Anxiety
If there’s a time of day that yoga is certainly better for you, it has to be in the morning to start your day! Here are the benefits of doing yoga in the morning and a 10-minute in-bed morning yoga sequence for an energised and productive day.
Benefits of Doing Yoga in the Morning
Clear your mind, improve focus
Yoga helps you to focus on your breathing, your thoughts and what you need to do that day. It can help balance you, and by doing it in the morning, you will feel this increased focus and balance before the craziness of the world descends on you!
We feel better when we exercise, or move our body. Some poses help to detox our digestive systems too – which is great in the morning as a way to get our metabolism started. This, in turn, will help you not just lose weight, but also maintain a good, healthy body.
Advantages of Doing Morning Yoga in Bed
Sometimes, we need to get our yoga in before we get out of bed. There’s actually a surprising amount of good, effective poses we can do into a little morning routine.
Consistency
When I started doing yoga in the morning, I found it hard to be consistent. And then I discovered that by doing yoga in bed, I could ensure that I was doing it every single day. Yoga in bed helps you to be consistent!
Less Stress on our Bodies
Sometimes there are days when our joints are aching or our back is tired. This doesn’t always translate well to yoga mats on the cold hard floor and so doing yoga in bed is a great way to take it easy on your joints too.
Less Time Consuming
One of the troubles of doing yoga can be the time consuming nature of it, for example changing into the correct attire, getting your mat out of the cupboard, and then putting it all way again. In the morning time can be a precious commodity, and so doing yoga in bed means that you don’t even have to change out of your pajamas!
So the answer to your question of “can i do yoga on my bed?” is totally a yes.
A 10-minute Sequence of 5 Morning In-Bed Yoga Poses
1. Balasana: Wide-Leg Child’s Pose
- Right, getting started with possibly the easiest, and yet best poses of all. As soon as you wake up, yoga in bed should always start with a good child’s pose allowing you to stretch out your shoulders and upper arms, as well as your hips, thighs and ankles when going more wide-legged.
- Generally, I start in the traditional way as pictured, and then as I widen my legs for the pose, I push further away with my fingers spread as wide as possible.
- I tend to do the first for about 30-60 seconds, and the wide-legged pose for another 30-60 seconds, depending both on time constraints and also how much the stretch is needed.
- This pose is great for a few things; getting your breathing in order right from the first waking moments of the day. This pose is also excellent to get your state of mindfulness started.
2. Paschimottanasana: Seated Forward Bend
- Transitioning into this pose, and holding for as long as you feel you need it – be it 30 seconds, or 2 minutes. I probably wouldn’t go beyond the 2 minutes, however.
- Straightening out your legs and reaching for your toes will help stretch your hamstrings, glutes, and lower back and lengthen your spine. By trying to stretch your back further each time you breathe out, this pose will help you bring balance to your breathing too.
- Whenever I ask myself: “can I do yoga on my bed?” I am reminded of this pose. Many of us wake up and our bodies are yawning, and we have this seemingly uncontrollable urge to stretch out.
- We’ve all seen our pets like cats or dogs do this too – it’s nature. Don’t fight that urge, instead, use the seated forward bend to be your stretch!
3. Gomukhasana: Cow Face Pose (with Eagle Arms)
- Moving into your 3rd pose, now we hit a slightly more difficult pose.
- Unlike the traditional cow’s face pose which asks you to put your arms behind your back or even for balance to the side, adding eagle arms for me adds an extra step that’s good for you in the mornings and helps with your mindfulness.
- Cross your legs over each other like in the image, and then, with a straight back, fold your arms into eagle arms pose. Hold for between 1-2 minutes.
- I use this pose for concentrating on my breathing, and my thoughts. I try to set my agenda for the day with this pose – thinking about what my priorities are and what I need to get done.
- I run through in my mind my goals for the day and think about what I would like to have achieved by the time I’m back here, in my bed at the end of the day.
4. Supta Matsyendrasana: Supine Spinal Twist
- Lie down on your back, spread your arms out perpendicular to your body, and first twist one leg over your other all the way, hold for 60 seconds, and then mirror the image so your other leg goes over, and hold for another 60 seconds.
- This pose helps to squeeze out the toxins from your digestive system. It stretches and relaxes your spine, and helps promote healthy digestion for the rest of the day.
- I use this pose in the morning as part of a routine to help my metabolism, and my bowel movements!
- I often find that combining this with a glass of warm lemon water (freshly squeezed by me from a lemon into a glass of warm water), helps my digestion work the way it’s supposed to that day, avoiding stomach cramps or trapped gases and toxins throughout the day.
5. Supta Baddha Konasana: Reclining Bound Angle Pose
- Rounding off your routine of morning yoga on bed, comes the often underrated reclining bound angle pose.
- This helps to stimulate your heart and general blood circulation (very important, you’ll agree) and stretches your groin, thigh muscles, loosens your knees and again allows you to focus both on your breathing, and your focus your thoughts.
- There is absolutely no time limit on how long to hold this for, and if you are into meditation or wanting to use an app for a session, this is a great pose to hold for the duration of this meditation.
- I do use this pose often for my morning meditation, to transition, focus my thoughts, and gather myself before an impending storm.
In fact, I have become so reliant upon finishing with this pose, that if I ever miss doing it, I find myself getting more stressed.
Yoga can seem daunting to newcomers, and even to experienced yogis who don’t always know how to get it into their everyday lives or routines at the right time.
I hope that this answers your question of how to do yoga poses in bed, you find this morning yoga in bed routine as helpful as I do, and I pray for your success!
To learn more about doing yoga in bed, here are 15 bedtime yoga poses for a better sleep.
Jennie T
Jennie is a long time yogi, a vegetarian and a blogger. Her morning routine starts with a glass of lukewarm lemon water, 1-hour yoga or cardio exercise, then an organic smoothie, and a cup of green tea or milk tea. Besides yoga and blogging, she likes to meditate in the morning or at lunch break. She is a Seinfeld's fan (sorry Friends)
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