Bedtime Yoga for Beginners: 8 Poses Before Sleep

Bedtime yoga is a slow set of gentle poses you do in the last 10 to 15 minutes before sleep. For beginners, 8 easy shapes like Child’s Pose, a reclined twist and Legs Up the Wall, held for slow breaths on the floor or in bed, are enough to help your body shift into wind-down mode.

Quick honesty before we start. I’m a NASM certified trainer and corrective exercise specialist with 20+ years in fitness, but I’m not a certified yoga teacher. I coach these poses the way I coach any movement: comfortable joints, slow breathing, and zero forcing.

What Bedtime Yoga Is (and What It Isn’t)

Bedtime yoga is not a workout. It’s closer to a wind-down ritual that happens to use yoga poses.

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The goal is to move slowly, breathe slowly and give your body a clear signal that the day is over. You won’t sweat, and you shouldn’t feel challenged.

A question I hear a lot is whether any yoga before bed is a good idea. Gentle, mostly floor based poses usually are. Power yoga, hot yoga or long holds in deep backbends are better earlier in the day, because they tend to wake you up.

Why Bedtime Yoga Can Help You Wind Down

Many women I coach tell me the hardest part of the night isn’t falling asleep. It’s getting their brain to stop running through tomorrow’s to-do list.

Slow movement paired with slow breathing gives your mind something simple to focus on. Research suggests that slow, relaxed breathing can help shift the body toward a calmer, rest and digest state, which is exactly the mood you want before sleep.

Gentle poses also ease the stiffness that builds up from a day of sitting, driving or standing. Tight hips and a stiff upper back can make it hard to get comfortable in bed.

It’s not a cure for insomnia, and it won’t fix a noisy room or a late coffee. Think of it as one helpful habit in a bigger sleep routine.

How to Set Up Your Evening Yoga Space

You don’t need a studio. A clear patch of floor next to your bed, or your bed itself, works fine.

1. Dim the lights. Use a lamp instead of overhead lights, and put your phone on silent or across the room.
2. Gather soft props. Grab two pillows, a folded blanket and, if you have one, a yoga block.
3. Pick floor or bed. A mat on the floor gives more support for twists. Your bed works for most reclined poses if your mattress is fairly firm.
4. Wear something loose. Pajamas are perfect. Nothing should dig into your waist when you fold forward.
5. Set a gentle timer. Ten or fifteen minutes is enough, so you’re not checking the clock.

If you’d rather stretch than do yoga shapes, my stretching routine before bed covers similar areas with simple, familiar stretches.

8 Bedtime Yoga Poses for Beginners

Move through these poses in order. Hold each one for 5 to 10 slow breaths, or about a minute, unless the cue says otherwise.

1. Child’s Pose (Balasana)

Kneel with your big toes together and your knees wide. Sit your hips back toward your heels and rest your forehead on a pillow or your stacked hands.

Let your belly soften between your thighs. If your hips don’t reach your heels, slide a pillow between your calves and the backs of your thighs.

2. Cat-Cow (Marjaryasana Bitilasana)

Come onto your hands and knees with your wrists under your shoulders. Inhale as you gently lift your chest, then exhale as you round your back and let your head hang.

Keep the movement small and slow at night. Six to eight easy rounds is plenty to loosen your spine.

3. Seated Forward Fold (Paschimottanasana)

Sit with your legs out in front of you, on a folded blanket if your lower back rounds a lot. Bend your knees generously and fold forward from your hips, resting your chest on a pillow on your thighs.

This is a resting fold, not a hamstring test. If your hamstrings feel tight, you’ll find more help in my guide to tight hamstrings.

4. Reclined Bound Angle (Supta Baddha Konasana)

Lie on your back, bring the soles of your feet together and let your knees fall open. Slide a pillow or folded blanket under each knee so your inner thighs can fully relax.

Rest one hand on your belly and one on your chest. Feel your breath move under your hands.

5. Knees to Chest (Apanasana)

Hug both knees in toward your chest and hold the backs of your thighs or your shins. Rock gently side to side to massage your lower back on the floor.

If holding your legs strains your shoulders, rest your feet on the edge of the bed or a chair instead.

6. Supine Twist (Supta Matsyendrasana)

From your back, bring your knees together and let them lower slowly to one side. Stretch your arms out and rest your head in the middle or turn it gently away from your knees.

Put a pillow under your knees if they hang in the air. Stay for about a minute, then switch sides.

7. Legs up the Wall (Viparita Karani)

Sit sideways next to a wall, then swing your legs up as you lie back. Scoot your hips as close to the wall as feels comfortable, with your legs relaxed and slightly bent.

You can also do this with your legs resting on your headboard or on a stack of pillows. Stay for about 3 minutes, or longer if it feels good, and let your feet and legs feel heavy.

8. Corpse Pose (Savasana)

Lie flat with a pillow under your knees and your arms resting by your sides, palms up. Let your jaw, shoulders and hands soften.

If you’re in bed, this is the moment to simply pull up the covers and stay there. That’s the whole point.

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Bedtime Yoga Poses at a Glance

Here’s a quick look at each pose, how long to hold it and what it does for you at night.

Yoga in Bed: the Lazy Version

Some nights you won’t want to get on the floor. That’s fine, because half of this routine works in bed.

1. Knees to Chest for 5 slow breaths.
2. Supine Twist for 5 breaths each side.
3. Reclined Bound Angle with pillows under your knees for 10 breaths.
4. Legs Up the Headboard for 2 minutes, or legs resting on stacked pillows.
5. Corpse Pose under the covers until you drift off.

A soft mattress lets your hips sink, so skip anything that twists your lower back too far. Keep every movement easy.

How to Breathe During Bedtime Yoga

Your breath does a lot of the work here. A simple pattern helps your body slow down.

1. Breathe through your nose if that’s comfortable for you.
2. Inhale for a slow count of 4.
3. Exhale for a slow count of 6. A longer exhale tends to feel calming.
4. Keep it easy. If you feel short of breath or lightheaded, go back to normal breathing.

If you enjoy slow, flowing movement, you might also like tai chi for sleep, which pairs gentle movement with the same relaxed breathing.

Common Mistakes with Yoga Before Bed

A few small habits can turn a calming routine into one that keeps you up.

• Doing too much. Long, intense sessions raise your energy instead of lowering it.
• Bright screens. Following a video on a bright phone right next to your face can feel stimulating. Learn the poses, then do them without the screen.
• Chasing a deep stretch. Strong stretches can feel uncomfortable and leave you wired.
• Holding your breath. If your breath gets choppy, back off the pose.
• Skipping support. Without pillows, your muscles keep working to hold you up.

Men are welcome to use this routine too. The men I train often carry a lot of tension in their hips and lower back, and these same gentle poses help.

Your This-Week Plan

1. Night 1: Try just Child’s Pose, a Supine Twist and Corpse Pose for 5 minutes.
2. Night 3: Add Cat-Cow, Knees to Chest and Legs Up the Wall.
3. Night 5: Do all 8 poses in order for 10 to 15 minutes.
4. Night 7: Pick your three favorite poses and keep them as your go-to bedtime yoga routine.

Quick Questions

This routine is part of my yoga for beginners at home guide, where you’ll find gentle routines, chair yoga and honest answers about starting yoga at any age.

The Bottom Line

Bedtime yoga works best when it’s simple. Eight gentle poses, slow breathing and a few pillows can turn the last 15 minutes of your day into a calm, steady wind-down.

Start small, keep it soft, and let the routine become a signal that it’s time to rest. If you want more slow, supported shapes, explore my favorite restorative yoga poses.

This article is for general education and isn’t medical advice. If you have ongoing trouble sleeping, snoring with pauses in breathing, or daytime exhaustion, talk to your doctor. Check with your doctor before trying Legs Up the Wall if you have glaucoma, uncontrolled high blood pressure or a heart condition, and stop any pose that causes pain, numbness or dizziness.