6 Yoga Poses to Relax Your Mind

Relationships, financial, academic, or health worries can take a toll on your mind and body. However, practicing yoga can give you a much-needed break that your body needs from the pressures of your daily life. 

Regardless of your age, yoga can provide you with an array of health benefits if you consistently practice it. For example, it can help fight anxiety, stress, and depression. 

There are many reasons yoga can calm the mind, but we’ve chosen six yoga poses to relax your mind. Read on to find out. 

Child’s Pose

It is one of the most essential resting postures in yoga that gently stretches your body in various places.

It reduces the effects of stress and fatigue while stretching the hips, thighs, and ankles. It softly and passively stretches the muscles in one’s back while simultaneously relaxing their front muscles. If you want to multiply the benefits of yoga, you can also add CBD products to your yoga lessons to the next level. Many reputed websites like cbdfx.com indicates CBD to show stress-relieving properties. So, it can be a great addition to your routine. 

Resting in this pose soothes, centers, and calms the brain, making it an excellent therapeutic posture to relieve stress. 

To try this pose, sit on your heels, allowing a gap between your knees. Then, extend your arms to your sides, resting your midsection between your thighs and upper body on the floor. In this position, take several long, deep breaths. You may hold this position for up to five minutes or longer if you like.

Standing Forward Bend

You can stretch and lengthen the hamstrings and calves through the Standing Forward Bend. Running or playing sports that involve frequent running can cause tight hamstrings. Poses like this relieve stress and relax the mind.

Here’s a short guide to doing the Standing Forward Bend:

• Space your feet hip-width apart as you stand.
• While exhaling, bend forward as you place your palms flat on the ground and press your head against your knees.
• Take five to six deep breaths in this pose. As you return to your standing position, release the pose while inhaling.

Crow Pose

Practicing this pose will help you focus, gain strength, and strengthen your concentration. Let your mind be calm and happy when you do this pose. You can also overcome depression by having a powerful mind.

Here’s a guide for doing the Crow Pose

• Spread your arms shoulder distance apart.
• Put your feet on top of two blocks. Kneel as high as you can with your upper arms. Place the bolster under and in front of your face.
• Lift your bottom by leaning forward.
• Your knees will rest on a shelf created by your bent arms. 
• Step off the blocks one foot at a time.
• If this feels comfortable for you, you can hold and breathe here.
• Remove both feet from the blocks.
• Bring everything together.
• As you straighten your arms, draw your ribs and stomach in, round your spine, and pull your shoulders back.

It’s just as essential to practice this pose as it is to achieve it. Strengthening your arms, shoulders, and core will enable you to reach greater heights while doing the Crow pose.

The Corpse Pose

This yoga pose aims to relax your whole body by putting it at ease and to feel relaxed and rejuvenated. Your nervous system is calmer, blood pressure falls, and breathing is slow in a restful state. 

With this pose, you are gradually relaxing one body part or muscle at a time while treating each thought with mindful awareness. Continuous repetition of this practice conditions the body to let go of stress. It can also help enhance your sense of well-being, both physically and emotionally. 

Here’s a guide for the Corpse Pose

• Put your hands on your back and knees bent at hip-width, with your arms tucked on either side.
• As you inhale, lift your hips and stretch your arms towards your thighs; roll your spine as you press your shoulders and arms.
• Lie on your back while exhaling, and stay in this pose for four to six breaths.

Inversions

A yogi’s favorite pose is inversion. It stimulates venous blood flow from the pelvis to the heart. Also, this position allows for better oxygenation of the blood since it lowers your heart rate. 

Inversions are also great stress relievers.  Beginners should stick to simple ones. You can stabilize your mood and mental health through various inversion postures. You can try the Legs Up the Wall one, which is beginner-friendly:

Here is a guide for doing Inversions:

• With your feet parallel to the floor, you can place your legs up against the wall.
• Ensure that your sitting bones are a few inches from the wall and that your tailbone is on a folded towel.
• Maintain a relaxed posture by relaxing your knees as you touch the wall. 
• For 5–20 minutes, hold this position. It is vital to practice controlled, slow breathing during this time.

Cat and Cow Pose

This exercise warms the body and makes the spine more flexible. You stretch the back, torso, and neck with this pose, stimulating and strengthening the abdominal organs. It also helps to open the chest, increasing the depth and slowness of the breath. 

During the two poses, the spine moves, which stimulates the kidneys and adrenal glands. By coordinating your breathing with this movement, you can reduce stress and calm the mind.

As well as helping build postural awareness, this sequence develops balance all over the body. By practicing it regularly, it prevents back pain by aligning the spine correctly.

Conclusion

It doesn’t matter how much time you spend engaging with yourself, whether an hour and a half or just five minutes. It’s the quality of your practice that matters.

When it is time to exit the pose, come out slowly. It is also more gratifying for your mind, besides being safer for your body. Taking the ease, you’ve built on your mat into your life will help you feel more relaxed and open with these six yoga poses.