Day 4: Immune Booster

Welcome to day four. We're going to work on immunity today and disease resistance. It's so important to make sure that digestion is flowing well, right? So when you have a strong metabolic balance and you have a good digestion, the body functions well and you feel great and energized. So this Crea for disease resistance and immunity will help us to stay healthy in the times when colds are running around or just little viruses or bacteria and we can just really through our aura and our projection of well-being and a strong system, we can kind of avoid that carefully. Okay, so let's work on that together today and we'll begin by tuning in with Aung Namo, Guru Dev Namo. Bring the hands at the heart center. Take a deep breath and just plant your seed of intention at the brow point. Exhale and let's inhale to begin. Aung Namo, Guru Dev Namo, Aung Namo, Guru Dev Namo, Aung Namo, Guru Dev Namo. Deep inhale and exhale. Let's get right into it and open the legs up nice and wide. Take a deep inhale, center, exhale left, inhale up, exhale right. Good, just opening up the body a little bit before we begin. Inhale up and exhale, come on down to the center. Inhale halfway up, exhale down.

Go at a speed that feels good for you again. Remembering if you're just moving a little bit, always moving with a straight spine and the heart open. So avoiding this crunching of the spine. We're just, just even if you're moving like this, it's fine. Just do it in a good way. Inhale up and exhale and let's just go into a lovely little lunge here just to open up the hips. So just bringing the right knee forward and coming up on the left knee and just opening deep breath. Inhale, curve up, exhale down. Inhale, exhale. This is a wonderful one to do when you get some tight hips so you've been sitting too long. Just do a few of those even in the morning.

That's a really great one. I love these and I use them in my daily routine every day. And let's swap legs. Bring the left leg up and drop onto the right knee and inhale up, exhale down. And inhale. Good. And come back into an easy pose and let's just do a few spinal flexes. We've got a lot of different movements in this kriya so there's no need for too many warm-ups. And just we also call this one camel ride which I kind of like to imagine myself in the Sahara desert riding on my beautiful camel. Inhale. You got to make it fun, right? You can't take all of this too seriously. The real joy of yoga actually is just to really have fun doing it.

Opening up the heart. And inhale and exhale. Good. Let's begin our kriya. Okay, we'll begin on the knees in rock pose. We're going to be here for a few of the exercises so get your little cushion or blanket and put it right beneath your buttocks if you feel like that would help you to be comfortable. So we're going to bring the arms up above the head, palms together in prayer pose, and you're going to inhale deeply and bring the navel to the back of the spine and then relax it. We're pumping the navel as fast as you can on the inhale. So again you're going to inhale, hold, and pump as long as you can and then when you can't pump anymore you're going to let go and exhale and then you're going to start again. Focus the eyes at the brow point. Let's begin. Inhale, hold, and pump. And exhale, release. Inhale, hold, pump, and your rhythm might not be my rhythm and that's totally fine. If you can pump for just three times it's fine. You just do what you can. You kind of have to build up to pumping for a long time, okay? Keep going. So this is working on your digestion and also stimulating the energy of the kundalini. Pump. You're bringing in the navel and then relaxing it. Do the best you can. If this is new for you it's totally fine. You'll just try it out and then you'll practice it again and do better next time. It's really a working progress doing these kind of postures. They can be quite challenging. And last one. Inhale, hold the breath and pump.

And exhale, release the arms. Good. So staying in rock pose here we're going to do what's called bear grip which is you're simply clasping the fingers right at the heart center. And what you're going to do is we're going to do a deep inhale. Hold the breath and you're going to try with maximum force to pull the hands apart. Go, go, go. When you can't do it anymore relax and relax the breath. This is working on the thymus glands as well as the kundalini energy. Inhale, hold the breath and pull and pull and pull as hard as you can. Keep your eyes closed. Focus at the brow point. Pull and exhale. Inhale and pull and hold maximum force and exhale. Inhale and pull. We're also opening the heart here. Go for it. Give it all you got.

Pull a little bit more and exhale. Again, inhale. Pull the bear grip. Build your immunity. And exhale. Let's do one more. Inhale deep. Pull. Open your heart and exhale. Completely relax. Open up the hands and just roll the head around a little bit. Working out the neck and shoulders here. This next one we're also in rock pose. We're going to Venus lock the hands behind the head and we're going to inhale up and exhale down. Touching the forehead to the floor. Inhale up with powerful breath. Exhale down. This is working on the flexibility of the spine and also our digestion. Eyes are closed or open. Up to you and let's begin. Use your core while you move. You don't want to use the strength of your lower back. You really want to make sure that you're coming from the naval center. Keep going just a few more.

And inhale up. Squeeze the root lock. Navel pulls in. Rise the pelvic floor. Feel the energy going up to the crown of the head and exhale. Let's come into life nerve stretch. This is going to be a beautiful follow-up to what we've just done. So just bring your legs out in front and shake them out. And a little different than we might have done it on other days. You're going to grab either your toes with the index and third finger or you're going to grab your shins wherever you're at is just fine. And what we're going to do is we're going to inhale and then exhale and we're actually going to stay down there with a long deep breath. So please begin to breathe and I'll just talk you through a couple of things. So this is really allowing the secretions from all the previous exercises to move throughout the body and strengthen the body for immunity and heal the body. So get deep into the breath and the experience of this wonderful posture as you rest here with long deep breaths.

Keep going. Just breathe and receive. Just a little bit longer. Should feel a lovely stretch in the lower back and inviting you to inhale. Sats, exhale, nam. Keep your mind clear and still. Practice the yoga of the mind while you're practicing the physical yoga. And last one. Deep inhale and exhale very gently. Pull yourself up. Let's come back into easy pose. So here we're just simply going to roll the head around. This is just going to feel lovely.

We're going to do both sides. So choose your side. Just very gently. You should be very fluid and sweet. Just one minute on each side. Rolling around. No tension. Take your time. And let's go to the other side. A couple more. And inhale, center. And exhale. Let's come into all fours. So hands directly underneath the shoulders, knees directly underneath the hips. And we're just doing a simple cat cow. Inhale, look up, arch the back down. Exhale. Go the other way. Inhale, look up. Exhale. Start slow. And as you get more flexibility, you can move faster.

And again, this is distributing the beautiful Kundalini energy to all the different systems and invigorating us with immunity and disease resistance. See if you can speed up a little bit for the last few. Always keeping the arms as straight as you can. So you're really just using the torso. And inhale. Let's squeeze that root lock. Rise the energy to the crown. And exhale.

Let's come back into easy pose for shoulder shrugs. Just a few more things. We're going to do alternate shoulder shrugs. So here you want to use the pressure of the hands on the thighs to push the shoulders up. So inhale, left. Exhale, right. Let's begin. Powerful breaths. Keep going. Keep going. Working out any tension left in the upper chakras and also around the neck and shoulders. That's where we can hold a lot of our stress. So really kicking that off with the breath and the movement.

And inhale deep. And exhale. Lovely. So we're not done yet, but we get a little break. Come lying down on your back for a little shavasana of just about a minute and a half before we go into our final two movements. And I will join you. Opening up the palms of the hands up to the heavens and just allow yourself to completely melt into the earth. Inhaling sat. Exhaling nam. As you let the body relax and receive the fruits of your efforts. Softening the mouth, softening the face, opening the throat.

And let's take a deep inhale. Stretch the arms up above. And exhale. Gently bring yourself up. So now here come the final two little challenging exercises. Let's come into a triangle pose. So here you want to make sure that your knees are straight as they can be and really open up the hands like starfishes and roll the armpits towards each other. And you're going to tuck in the chin slightly. And you're just going to breathe long and deep here. Normal breath. This strengthens the whole nervous system right here. So just it's such a little treasure of all the yoga traditions. Downward facing dog or triangle pose. Just breathe long and deep and just relax into this posture. Let your nervous system get a reset.

If you feel comfortable, just to lengthen your tailbone up to the heavens as you press your heels in a little bit and continue to breathe deeply. And last moment here. Take a deep inhale. And exhale. Please stay in the posture. And what you're going to do is you're going to walk up your feet up to your hands. And I'll demonstrate this very fun posture here. It's called elephant walk. And you're going to grab your ankles and you're going to walk around your room like this, trying to keep the knees straight. Very strange. Another little kundaluni moment here that we love. And just walk around just for a minute and a half or so. Try to keep the knees straight. Very good again for immunity and the nervous system. If you're doing it with a partner, you can kind of bump into each other and have a good laugh. Just walk around.

I don't have very far to go, unfortunately, but this is perfect. Keep walking around. Any direction is fine. Forward and backward. Trying to keep the knees straight. Go a little bit longer. We're nearly there. And inhale deeply. And exhale. Why don't you come sitting back down in easy pose as we prepare to close our practice. So we're going to close our practice with just a little bit of what's called bhastrakha, which is very good also for immunity. And it's a little thing that you can do anytime just to gather some energy. What we're going to do is reach up to the heavens and we're going to pull down the energy with har at the navel. H-A-R. But what we're doing is we're actually striking the rib cage, which really helps with building the nervous system, strengthening the immunity. And let's go.

H-A-R-R-H-R-R-H-R-H-R-H-R-R-R-R-H-R-H-R, just a few more. Har, har, har, har, inhale deep, pull the root lock, rise the energy up to the crown, and exhale. And just enjoy and feel the fruits of your effort, feeling energized, clear, and like you have this strong sense of well-being. This is so much of what this technology of kundalini yoga is about. So go about your day, enjoy, drink lots of water, maybe get a green juice in there every day.

That's kind of a great part of rebooting our vitality. So let's close with a long sat and a short nam, inhale. Have a beautiful day.