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It's driving me crazy!!!! I can't sleep and my mind keeps going over old cr*p and I just can't get it to stop. Any good yoga poses or breathing that might help someone like me?

Thanks in advance

Yes! Try practicing some full yogic breath in bed. Lie on your back and place your hands on your stomach. Feel it rise and fall as your breathe in and out. Then try and move the breath a little further up and see your ribs expand and contract. Finally breathe all the way up to your chest. Then try and link all these together - starting with the breath in the stomach, ribs, chest and then back down again.

Do this about 10 times, and then try and extend the breath slightly on the exhale. Again do this for 10 rounds. You should get a beuuuuuutiful nights sleep...let us know!

Leaf, they say that every thought in your mind has a corresponding tension in your body. i've found that the thoughts likely to keep me awake are usually manifesting as tensions/blockages in my back, along my spine, and up into my shoulders. that's normal, i think. the Bridge posture sorts it. and you can do it while in bed, if your mattress is firm. (if it isn't, throw it out now and buy a japanese futon.)

click here >> Yoga Journal - Bridge Pose << a great site i just now discovered.

(if your thought-tensions are somewhere else, try being still and locating them, then find an appropriate posture.)

at the end of the Bridge, where it says "rolling the spine slowly down onto the floor", do that real slow, vertebra-by-vertebra, from neck to sacrum. repeat as required. combine with some of Amanda's breathing. soon your back will feel magentised to the mattress, and your mind will be still. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Thanks for coming back to me on this. Diddid I tried what you suggested but I just can't find blockages (I'm not really sure what you mean here), can you explain how I find them? Is it a feeling? I feel that my mind is blocked - is that it?

Heyya Leaf,

I have had similar issues in the past with sleep irregularities. I also "regularly" go to a woman for Auyervedic Hot Stone Massages & Reiki. Every time I tell her I am sleeping badly or am constantly go over things in my mind, all negative and all to do with the past, she tells me to get a journal and jot them down. Sort of expels them from the head onto the paper I guess.
If you decide to go down this path, let me know how you go with it, cause to date I have forgotten to do it until I am struggling, and the shops aren't open at that time.
By the time the next day arrives, I am not thinking about journals but about how I am going to get the day feeling like the proverbial.
And no I am not taking the piss either. It is something I have seriously thought about recently, and something I will try to start for the New Year I guess, along with a Yoga journal (Not really sure what they are like, but time will tell I guess)
Oh yes....Massages are great for relaxing too, so if money is tight find a student clinic near you. they are usually quite cheap and the service is just as good as anywhere else.

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Oh Dear......You really think i can get myself into that pose.........and then back out of it?

This is great advice, thanks Novice. Hummmm a journal, I kinda like the 'idea' of it, but would i 'do' it, that is the question. Like you I have tried it in the past and it worked when I wrote in it regularly. But you know what it's like, you know it's good for you but you just don't do it - I don't know why!!

A massage is a great idea...and the hot stones sound GREAT!

Love your pic diddididdle!!

when I find a lot of stuff racing through my head, I write a to-do list. then I cross things off the list one-by-one.

sooner or later, you won't have so much stuff running around in your head

that is, provided, that you learn to live life in such a way as to not create a lot of crap that runs around in your head

if you create things that run around in your head faster that you check things off your to-do list, you're in big trouble

I'm hearing you!!!!!

oh, seems like i've given you even more to think about and keep you awake. maybe you can skip the locating the tensions part for now. just do the Bridge pose each night for at least a week and see what changes. -- the journal/to-do list is a good route too: if you know that you're gradually sorting life out on paper during the day, the mind feels less panicky and thinking it has to work on these things while you try to sleep. (Pukka Pads have a great "Things To Do Today" pad.) -- i can later explain the thought-tension idea more if you really think it'll be useful. i find too much theory can get in the way of doing.

my pic: thanks, yea i think it's just the right combination of naff and cool. i feel like i've been self-promoted. haha.

I agree, will go for the bridge pose with breathing for now, will come back to you on the other later when my mind isn't as busy tho...