Balasana Child's Pose - The Ultimate Calming Pose

With being busy in mind, we have chosen Balasana - Childs Pose as our top tip for this week, a great pose to wind down and stay calm.

Benefits of Balasana (Childs Pose)
Child's Pose is in our opinion one of the best restorative and resting postures. It is great for resting during your practice but also wonderful for calming the body and mind simply done alone throughout the day. 

Calms the Body and Mind
Childs pose, is a forward bending posture. Forward bends centre, sooth and calm the brain. There are many therapeutic benefits of child's pose including stress relief.

 A Gentle Stretch
It gently stretches the hips, thighs, and ankles. Also it will relax the muscles on the front of the body while softly and passively stretching the muscles of the back torso.

Breath Awareness
A fantastic posture to bring the awareness back to the breath. Feel the breath in the belly against the thighs and feel the breath across the back. Awareness of the breath will calm the body and mind.

Top tips
*If you feel uncomforatble pinching in the hip flexors, open the knees to the side, keeping your big toes together.
*Let go and surrender. This is a restorative pose and can be a passive one. Let go of your shoulders, your arms, your face. Let go and breathe. 
*If you have bad knees be careful with this one. You may find putting a blanket or an extra folded mat between the calfs and thighs will help.
*Breathe into your belly, feel the rise and fall action as the abdomen rests on the thighs. Feel the breath across the back and enjoy!

So why not add Balasana into your daily life? 3 minutes of this pose before going to sleep will ensure the body and mind have slowed down and let go, preparing you for a wonderful night of zzzzzzzzzz