Are You Stressed Out? Reduce Cortisol Naturally With This Yoga Practice

Hello, sweet friends, and welcome to Yoga with Adriene! This is Benji. I'm Adrian and, I'm just so glad you're here. Thank you so much for pressing play on this video. This is a session to help reduce cortisol, the stress hormone in the body. Let's begin with a little breath practice, so you can come into a comfortable seat. I'm sitting up on a block here just to help give myself a little lift, a little extra support. Today. You can sit on a blanket, a block or nothing at all. Take a second to get settled in and we are not going to rush through this session. In fact, I feel that you'll get the maximum benefits of this yoga practice by allowing yourself to slow down just a bit. Trust that this time is valuable as you sit up nice and tall in your seat. Allow your eyes to gently close down, or you can send your gaze down past your nose. Maybe just having the eyes 90% closed. just check in. You might feel right away like, whoa, gosh, it's so hard to slow down because. You've just been running on stress. Or you might find it really easy to slip into stillness. Wherever you are today, whatever you're landing here with, know that it is most welcome. Come as you are. Allow the hands to rest gently wherever they fall. Let's just take a couple quiet moments here to check in and notice how we're feeling. And observe the breath. Now I'll invite you to gently deepen your breath, just like Benji is doing over here. And. Also, it appears he's doing the next cue, which is to allow your breath to affect the way you're sitting, the way you're holding yourself, whatever that means to you. So it could be relaxing your shoulders down on the exhale. It could be filling the belly on the inhale. And the practice of yoga is for sure a beautiful layered cake, just like us. Multilayered, multifaceted. So, as with all our sessions together, I encourage you to really take this time for yourself. Make it your own. If all you do is breathe, that's great. If you want to go deep and use your exhale to let something go that is no longer serving you, Lean in. Good job. Benji just took a big sigh. All right, now that the eyelashes open, let's take a couple, circles in the shoulders here and we'll prep for our breath, practice our pranayama, alternate nostril breathing. There is a foundational video on this breath practice with me. It's super vintage, so fair warning, but you can go learn the step by step there if you like. We'll bring the thumb to the right nostril, sit up nice and tall, and breathe in through your left nostril. At the top of the inhale, pause for just a moment. You're going to switch and seal your left nostril with your middle finger and breathe out through your right nostril. Then stay here. As you breathe in through the right. After that inhale, you pause. You switch the seal and exhale out through the left. We'll find our groove here. Just take it slow. Inhale in through the left. Switch and seal. Exhale through the right. Inhale through the right. Pause. Switch and seal. Exhale through the left.

Inhale through the left. Pass switch and seal. Exhale through the right. Keep it going, here. Keeping the breath slow steady. Softening your gaze or closing your eyes. Always pausing at the top of the inhale to switch and seal. Staying at the bottom of the exhale to inhale through that same nostril. Alternating after the inhale. Make adjustments with your hand to support you in this repetition. So you can use any finger you like. To switch and seal. Do one more round wherever you are. And then we release the hand down. Close your eyes and just pause and observe. Notice how you feel. Then the two fingers that you were using. Or if you weren't using these two fingers, bring your middle finger and your thumb together in a mudra here at the right hand. And then same thing with the left hand. As you lift up gently through your chest. Breathe in. Get taller in the spine. Exhale, keep the heart lifted, but relax the shoulders down the body. So energetically you're thinking about this upward current of energy through the front body, and balancing that with this grounding energy through the back body. Might help to close your eyes here, imagining this lift up through the front body. And that lifts like so far beyond your body too. It goes all the way up. Into the universe. And then all the way back down your back body. And just notice, if at all, if it changes the way you hold yourself up here in this seat. Then slowly begin to move your fingertips, the middle finger and the thumb together. Just very slowly. Sensing the two fingerprints. That are touching. You then release that. Draw the palms together. Anjali mudra at the heart space. Take a deep breath in. Maybe lift the corners of the mouth gently. If that feels right for you today. And then exhale. Bow your head to your heart. Take a breath, here. Awesome, release. Lift the head, open the eyes and let's come forward onto all fours, nice and slow. Let's come into a tabletop position here.

Gently drawing the navel up to the spine, supporting the low back. And you can spread the fingertips here. Or the wrists or fussy. You can come on to the knuckles and we'll drop the belly. Inhale. Open the chest forward. Feel nice opening in the throat here today. And then exhale round through the spine. Press into whatever part of your body is touching the mat. Lift up through your core. Tuck through your chin. Feel the back body open. Inhale. Drop the belly. Exhale round through the spine. Now keep it going with your breath. And I'd like to invite you to soften your gaze or close your eyes and think about how when you drop into cow pose, the front body is open and expanding and the back body's drawing together and contraction. And then of course, in cat pose, the opposite feeling the back body open and expand. Get long in the front body core muscles contract and draw in. So you have two opposite types of qualities right to opposite qualities. types of movement. Then bring the spine to neutral. If you're on your fist, bring the fingertips wide. We're going to inhale in. Exhale curl the toes under and send just the right foot back. Both toes are curled under but just the right foot is reaching back. Rock front and back really stretching through the right calf. Really want to kind of pump the right calf here. Best you can. So good for the body. Give the calves some love. All right. Bring that right knee and keep your right toes curled under as you send your left toes back. Same thing. You can think of this like, like your spine is kind of soaring front and back, front and back. Lovely. Then bring both knees in, uncurl the toes and send the hips back. Fingertips reach all the way back towards the back edge of the mat for balance in the knees can be really close together or slightly apart. Find what's right in your body for this child's pose. Breathe into your back body here. Let your heart rest. Let the skin of your face soften. Then feel your fingernails trace on the mat. As you reach the arms all the way back up. Come back to all fours. Reset. Curl the toes under. Slide the right foot back, and this time we're going to lift the right foot all the way up. Best you can have a sense for the hips being level. Just feel it out. Engage the low abs. Inhale in here. Exhale needle nose. Inhale extend. Exhale. Need to know. Inhale extend. Exhale knee to nose and switch right into the next side. Send the left toes out. Lift the left heel all the way up. Find that balance in the hips. Inhale in. Exhale knee to nose. Inhale in. Exhale. Need a nose. Just a little agony in the center of the body here. Inhale extend. That's it. Come back to the asana. Or this time you can bring the knees super wide extended child's pose. So find your child's pose here. And let go.

One more breath. And trace the line with the fingertips. Come all the way forward. Come to all fours. From here. We're going to shift the feet to one side. Any side. Come to a seat. Send your legs out in front of you. Inhale. Reach the arms all the way up towards the sky. Exhale, dig into your heels and lift your knees to bend them like so. Flex your feet, then reach the fingertips up high and then think up and over as if you're draping your belly over your thighs. As you come into this modified seated forward fold. Allow the weight of the head to rest down. Allow the hands to rest wherever they fall so that can be shins, calves, ankles, feet. Maybe you give your feet a squeeze. If your hands reach that far, allow the head to rest. Feeling a deep stretch in the low back with your breath and only with conscious breath will we maybe begin to straighten the legs more towards a traditional passion watching asana. But don't push it. Just breathe. Feel it out. Relax your jaw, relax your forehead. And let's take some exhales out through the mouth. Here you can say it out. You can give it a good heart or maybe through pursed lips, as if you were blowing out through a straw. Stay with it, stay with it. I always say in these practices, you got to bring the breath. Lovely. Then we'll slowly release. Come up to a seat, cross one leg and then the other. So you're in a cross legged seat. Bring the fingertips to your shoulders, elbows wide. Inhale, open the chest and just do a couple circles here at the elbows. Forward, up and back. Then depending on your levels, like depending on how you're feeling today, you're going to stay with the circles or we're going to come into a little rhythmic twist by bringing the elbows in line with the shoulders and slowly bringing our head, our gaze and our heart to the left. And then through center, gaze, nose, heart all in alignment to the right, to the left and to the right. And if you feel comfortable, we'll start to pick up the pace a little. If this is too much energy, too much for you today, stick with the circles. Find your breath. Good. And release. Amazing. Shake it out. Let's all come to me on our backs. We're going to take a reclined twist one bridge pose, and then we're going to move towards legs up the wall. So that's where we're headed. Allow yourself to be present here for the rest of this practice. Gift yourself this time. So we'll bring the fingertips and arms really wide today. Full Texas T take up space. Inhale. Exhale. Hug the knees into your chest. From here, your choice. Pick a side. Any side. Allow the knees to fall to one side and rest here. Maybe giving yourself a little more space today by drawing the toes down towards the bottom edge of your mouth, breathing into the belly here. Maybe finding that three part breath filling the belly, the rib cage and the chest with the inhale and feeling it all soften as you exhale.

On an exhale, melt it through center and take it to the other side. Breathe deep. Return to your breath. Then bring it back to center. Plant the feet, toes pointing forward. Bring the hands down gently by your sides, palms pressing into the mat. Inhale in. Let's just do a pelvic tilt here to start tilting the pelvis, drawing the navel down, tailbone up and then continuing that journey up the spine nice and slow. Getting a little massage. Snuggling the shoulder blades underneath the heart space. Lifting the chest to the chin and the chin to the sky. Stay focused on your breath here. And then slowly release for softening through the sternum, then melting through the upper back, mid-back and lower back pelvis. Beautiful. So if the wall is not available for you today, you can practice waterfall. Maybe if you have a block you can bring it underneath the sacrum here. And one leg goes up slowly and then the other. That's an option. You can also do this. Oops. Without the block. If the wall is available to you. And guys do not stop this video. Now you have to finish with this legs up the wall if you can, or a version of just getting your legs up for a little bit. Now we'll see if Benji's going to share this blanket with me. I'm thinking maybe no, but let's see if you can. Let's get to a wall. place where we can put a little blanket or pull the mat up to the wall. You want to come here? I'm gonna train transports here. Benji, I'm going to come here. Okay? You know this one's mine. You take this one. Yeah. All right, so pull your mat up to the wall. Many of you know this. Or a little blanket up to the wall. The hardest part is getting situated. But you'll be so glad, I think, to experiment with this posture and bring it into your life. Many of you already do it. I know, so get the hips up towards the wall. There's actually a whole video to on legs up the wall to Carine that you can find. It's vintage as well. A lot of vintage video plugs today. Get those feet up. I'll stop talking and we'll take a rest here for a couple minutes together, allowing the hands to rest gently somewhere on the body. Can always pillow the head. little rest the heart rests the shoulders. Close the eyes. Take a deep inhale and allow your body to relax and release. Giving yourself this time to just be. Take your time, but slowly bring your awareness

back to the room you're in. Gently deepen your breath and open your eyes. And just allow your gaze to move from left to right. You might even move ear to ear, taking in the room that you're in. Have to say, I have a nice view of the blue sky here I'm grateful for. It's not every day. And then to come out of the pose safely, if you're at the wall, you can come through. Quick. Porter Konasana. And truly, I've been doing this a long time. It's so important to just move slowly and mindfully in and out. The transitions are so important, and then we'll slowly come back to a comfortable seat. Here with Benji is also good for reducing cortisol. I'll pet him for anyone who would like to, do it on your behalf, we'll come back to that comfortable seat and we'll seal this practice. By bringing the palms together. Close your eyes. Feel the warmth of your palms pressing together. Take a second to just sense where you're at. As always, it's an honor and a pleasure to practice with you. To move through this life together. Thank you so much. Take good care. Namaste.