It’s that time…again…

Painful periods can make it hard to stay on track with a yoga or fitness routine. You don’t have to abandon movement completely, but it can benefit you to take it easy and change it up a bit. You may notice that I left more space than usual between instructions, and there aren’t many “transitions” between poses. We’ll be holding the poses longer to allow the body to find the stretch in its own time. This is also a sequence that you can break apart and do the poses as individual stretches as you need throughout the month.

Be careful not to overstretch. The body produces more relaxin during menstruation which can feel like significant progress in a stretched position, when in reality you’re pushing beyond what you could normally do which you won’t feel until days after the fact. So take steady, calm breaths and let your body ease into each pose.

* The title is what it is because this is not exclusively for your period! As someone with endometriosis, this is my default practice if I’m having one of those horribly painful days (assuming I can move at all). And if the pain is so bad that I can’t move? I skip the yoga; those days happen too.