With a variety of age-related, health, and lifestyle factors affecting how we sleep, we need varied approaches to sleeping well. A night owl versus a morning lark, someone with hyperarousal versus emotional depression, or an adolescent versus an older person need different strategies for improving their sleep.

In applying yoga practices to specific sleep issues, it is important to align the effects of the practices with the causes of sleep issues.  If you are hyperaroused and your mind tends to jump around like the Energizer Bunny on espresso, this suggests a very different set of yoga sequences compared to the practices that help if you are emotionally depleted or depressed, are subject to timing issues, have a breathing disorder, or are frail. 

The sleep diary and other self-assessments listed in appendix II can help you identify your conditions, sleep patterns, and which practices are best for you.

In each of the yoga sequences given in the following chapters, the practices ...