Sick Day Yoga
Feeling under the weather? Try these easy poses to help you recover.
When you’re feeling sick, all you want to do is stay in bed. Doctors recommend plenty of rest when you’ve come down with an illness so your body has time to relax and regenerate. But being in bed all day can make your body stiff and sore and actually leave you feeling worse than you did before! Take advantage of the benefits of yoga, even when you are sick, to stretch your stiff muscles and increase your circulation. The below poses are designed for the days when you’re feeling under-the-weather but still want to do some nice stretches to help your body feel better.
Cat Cow Pose
I don’t know about you, but when I’m not feeling well and I’m laying around a lot, my neck and shoulders get really stiff. To loosen up, I’ll gently flow between cat and cow pose, listening to my body and following my breath. Cow pose is traditionally done on an inhale, with cat pose on the exhale. I love this gentle, easy flow because it helps you limber up a bit without being too vigorous, making it perfect for sick day yoga.
Seated Side Bend
After I felt warmed up with cat and cow, I moved on to a gentle side bend to help loosen up my side body and my shoulders. A nice addition to this is a gentle neck press, just gently resting your right hand on top of your head as your right ear falls toward your right shoulder, then doing the same stretch on the other side.
Supine Twist
I also wanted to get in a nice stretch through my back, which had also become pretty tight from laying in bed all day, so I added in a supine twist. When I did this in bed, I placed a pillow under my top knee to make this pose more restorative so I could just relax.
Supported Child’s Pose
To restore a sense of calm and peace, I did a little supported child’s pose. When I was sick in bed I used my pillow, but if you have a yoga bolster that would work great, too. Having the support of a pillow, bolster, or blanket under your chest really allows you to reap the restorative effects of this pose.
Supported Savasana
And, I ended my sick day yoga with some supported Savasana to open my heart and shoulders a bit more. Again, I had my pillow handy when I did this in bed, but a yoga bolster or a folded blanket would work nicely here and may even allow more of an opening through the heart than my pillow did.
All images courtesy of runningwiththesunrise.com.
