10-Minute Restorative Bridge Practice
As summer reaches its fullest expression, it's easy to keep moving without noticing how much we need to pause.
When our nervous system has been firing up our stress response so continuously, high alert can start to feel normal.
In less than one-twentieth of a second — less than the time between two heartbeats — our brain initiates biochemical, neurological, and physiological reactions designed to keep us alive. Breath quickens. Heart rate spikes. Muscles tighten.
This is not a character flaw. This is our a brain on stress.
The Pause interrupts this ancient circuitry. It down-regulates the nervous system and initiates what is known as the relaxation response — the off switch to fight-or-flight mode.
It creates space between stimulus and response. It allows the body to return to a state where it can rest, heal, and think clearly again. It opens a door to what we actually need in that moment.
When we pause, something happens in our body. Pausing tells our body it is safe to rest.
Quick Refresh: 10-Minute Restorative Bridge
Even a short practice can infuse mindfulness into your movement, your body, your presence. It can offer a sense of strength, mobility, and ease that we can bring with us moment by moment through our day.
I invite you to grab a pillow and a blanket and take a pause right now. This practice is a very simple, easy way to create more connection and fluidity through the hips and pelvis.
This restorative practice will stretch the psoas and open the front and back body. We’ll release the area around your diaphragm and the adrenals—where the top of the psoas inserts and things get really '“stuck.”
As the ribs become more mobile and the breath becomes more deep, we also get more freedom in the whole spine.
Seeking a more extended practice?
Join me on Tuesday, August 4 for A Midsummer Night's Rest & Reset, a special two-part online mini-retreat designed to help you slow down, soften, and reconnect with yourself.
We'll begin with a gentle body scan meditation to help you arrive, then move through a breath-centered practice with grounding yin postures before settling into a deeply restorative Yoga Nidra. Together, these simple practices invite your body, mind, and nervous system to arrive, settle, and reconnect through simple awareness and presence.
✨ Tuesday, August 4
🕖 Full Experience — Begin at 7:00 PM ET begin with Meditation | 7:30–8:30 PM ET Gentle Relaxation and Yoga Nidra Practice
💻 Live online + recording available through September 21
