Even if you sit behind a desk most of the day, your body is constantly in motion, with tightening muscles, a clenched jaw, and other factors that threaten your body’s ability to rest well.
Before turning in for the night, counteract the mindless motion that may be knotting you up with some intentional movement that can help straighten you out. Not only could stretching before bed prime your body for a good night’s sleep, it could even help you the next morning, too.
Benefits of bedtime stretches
- Tension relief, especially for people with desk jobs that can pull the body forward
- Greater mind-body connection
- Attention to physical imbalances
- Self-guided stress relief
According to Alexa Idama, an Atlanta-based Pilates instructor and yoga teacher, and the creator of Low Impact Fit, stretching before bed can have both physical and mental benefits. In addition to serving as an effective method to help melt away the day’s stress, stretches also help “release and restore tense muscles for a better night’s sleep,” she says. It’s free and highly accessible, requiring no special tools or equipment. But the benefits aren’t limited to relaxation before sleep.
“In the beginning, stretching can help you feel a general sense of being more relaxed and less stiff,” Idama says. “Over time, incorporating regular stretching into your routine can help you gain more functional range of motion in everyday life.”
Additionally, a 2018 study aiming to assess the impact of resistance exercise and stretching on sleep in chronic insomnia patients showed that, when compared to control groups, those who participated in moderate-intensity resistance exercise and stretching had significantly better scores on the Insomnia Severity Index and better sleep duration. Stretching also helped to improve tension anxiety in comparison to the control group.
How to incorporate stretching into your bedtime routine
Idama notes that there is no one-size-fits-all protocol for stretching, and that people should move according to their own pace or their doctor’s guidelines. However, there are a few things to take into consideration when incorporating stretches into your bedtime routine:
- Carve out enough space on your bedroom floor to accommodate your wingspan and range of motion.
- Begin stretching within an hour of going to sleep to maintain the feeling of relaxation before bed. Try these stretching sequences before your other bedtime activities, like making the next day’s to-do list or any hygiene and grooming rituals.
- Start with gentle movements or light stretches, like standing side-bends or forward folds, to prepare your body for any deeper stretches it might need.
- Create long-term goals centered around how you want to feel both before bed and when you wake up in the morning.
“When it comes to goals, it’s nice to repeat the same stretches for a while so that you can give your muscles an opportunity to get more out of the stretches and adapt over time to the demand of the stretch,” Idama says.
Easy bedtime stretches
The only materials you’ll need for these stretch sequences are a soft surface, like a mat, and your body.
As you go through the sequences, be sure to take 3-5 breaths in each position, holding for 10-15 seconds before exhaling. That will allow your body to open up and surrender to the stretch.
Standing side stretches
Benefits: Obliques, shoulders, and hip flexors; improves spinal mobility and hip flexibility.
1. Start by standing straight on your mat, placing your feet about hip-width apart.
2. Bring your arms all the way up while taking a deep inhale.
3. Hold on to your right wrist and exhale while leaning all the way over to the left side. Hold the position, pressing down into the right foot and up into the fingertips to really deepen the stretch. Take your gaze slightly up toward the ceiling as well.
4. Come back to center, switch wrists, inhale, and repeat, leaning in the other direction.
Standing backstretch
Benefits: Quads and hip flexors; improves spinal mobility.
1. Starting at center, bring the arms out, about hip-width.
2. With your arms up, inhale and lean gently into a backbend, reaching up into the fingertips as you open your front body.
3. On the exhale, bring yourself back to center.
Forward fold
Benefits: Posterior chain, calves, hamstrings, and glutes; opens up the lower back and lengthens the spinal extensors and upper back.
1. Take a deep breath while standing at center. Your feet should be about hip-width apart.
2. On the exhale, round the body forward, toward the ground, pulling the abdominals up and in along the way. Soften the knees slightly while letting your arms dangle. Only go about halfway.
3. Make a few circles with your arms, letting the limbs swing gently out, around, and in. Do at least five circles before switching directions.
3. Bring the arms to stillness and bend the knees a little more, allowing your fingertips to gently graze the floor.
There’s something that happens when the fingertips touch the floor that allows your body to relax even more.
4. Take a deep breath here, and as you exhale, actively and consciously melt and release into the stretch of your back body.
5. Take one more cycle of breath, softening even more.
Thread the needle
Benefits: Glutes and quads; improves spinal rotation and releases tension in the shoulder and upper back.
1. With feet hip-width apart, bend over and place hands flat on the floor.
2. Bend the knees a little and come down to all fours.
3. Once down on all fours, take your left arm and thread it underneath the right. Relax the shoulder away from your neck so you’re not building any tension.
4. Reach the right arm forward and stretch the hips away from that right hand. Feel the space being created in your back body.
5. Take a deep breath and allow yourself to settle into that stretch. Take one more deep breath, exhale, and feel yourself melt into the stretch.
6. Come back to center,
Active rest
Benefits: Posterior chain, neck, and muscle tissue; releases tension in the lower back, massages your internal organs.
1. Starting on all fours, pull the belly up and away from the thighs. Round the spine and tuck the tailbone slightly under.
2. Reach the hips back, away from the fingertips, applying gentle pressure on the fingertips. Feel the spread of all of the connective tissue in your back body.
3. Take one more breath in. On the exhale, press a little more into the fingertips, round the tailbone a little more, then pull yourself forward.
4. Transition into a seated position, in whichever way works best for you.
Bow & arrow stretch
Benefits: Pelvis; helps release hip joints and lower back; provides a gentle stretch for the hip flexor and quads; can help balance out unevenness in the hips and release tension through the whole body.
1. Starting from a seated position, lie back on the mat. Bend your knees and place your feet flat on the floor.
2. Bring your right knee into your chest, extending the left leg as far away from the body as you can, forming a sort of bow and arrow. It should feel like you’re pulling your arrow — your knee — back into your body, while reaching deep into the toes on your left leg to stretch out your “bow.” Feel this stretch across the quad on your left side and in the pelvis.
3. Return to center and repeat on the other side.
Hamstring stretch
Benefits: Hamstring and glutes; releases tension in the lower back.
1. Begin flat on your back with one leg pressing into the chest and the other extended on the mat, like you did for the bow and arrow.
2. Place the hands behind the hamstring of the bent leg.
3. Kick the leg up three times, with each kick taking you a little bit deeper into the hamstring stretch. On the third kick, hold the leg up while keeping the shoulders relaxed.
4. Walk the hands as far up the leg as you can. Keeping your shoulders relaxed, point your toes, and flex.
Remember that these are intended to be feel-good motions. If something doesn’t feel good here, regress a bit by bending the knee and/or walking the hands a bit lower down the leg.
5. Hold the flex position where the heel is reaching up. Pull the leg closer to your body while pressing the shoulders more deeply into the mat.
6. Return to flat back and repeat the sequence with the other leg.
Reclined twist
Benefits: Outer quads, quadratus lumborum; improves spinal mobility and releases the psoas and glutes.
1. Starting flat on your back, bring the right knee toward the chest while keeping the right leg extended on the mat.
2. Touch the outside of the right knee with your left hand, laying the right arm on the floor.
3. Use the left hand to draw the knee across the body, stretching the outer hip and slightly twisting the spine while keeping the shoulders grounded.
The aim is not necessarily to touch the floor with your right knee, but to feel the stretch as deeply as possible.
4. Return to flat back and repeat the process with the other leg.
Figure four stretch
Benefits: Quads and muscles in the lower back; releases tension in and around the hips, releasing the minimus and medius glutes.
1. Starting flat on your back, press the right leg toward your chest while bending the other leg so your left foot is flat on the floor.
2. Cross the right ankle over the left thigh.
3. Reach through the gap that you created between both legs and either hold behind your left hamstring or in front of your left shin for a figure four stretch. This will open up the right hip.
For even greater impact – and a DIY spinal massage – rock yourself gently from side to side.
If you find any sticky spots – spots that are talking to you more than others – you can always hold for an extra cycle of breathing to get a little more release through that stickiness.
4. Transition to the other side by pulling the left knee into your chest and extending the right leg as far from you as possible. Repeat the stretch sequence.
Remember that it’s normal to experience different stretching capacity on one side compared to the other.
5. Release and return to flat back.
Quad stretches
Benefits: Releases quads, hip flexors, and psoas muscles.
1. Lay down on your stomach.
2. Rest your head on your left forearm.
3. Keeping your legs as close together as possible, use your right hand to grab your right ankle and pull it into the body.
If your right hand does not reach far enough to hold on to the foot, you can always use a towel, strap, belt, or anything that allows you to pull the heel in.
3. Release and transition to the other side by bringing the left heel up, allowing the inner thighs to touch, so the hip and spine don’t compress.
4. Take a deep breath and try to bring the heel in closer.
5. Release the foot and press yourself back up to all fours.
Active rest
Benefits: Posterior chain, neck, and muscle tissue; releases tension in the lower back, massages your internal organs.
1. Starting on all fours, reach your hips backward.
2. Take a deep breath.
3. Exhale as you bring yourself back into a seated position.
You should now feel released, relaxed, and ready for a great night’s sleep.
