This Yoga Video For Stress Uses Pillows, and It's Just What I Needed on a Sunday

More often than not, my Sunday anxiety — or "Sunday scaries" — feels like a nagging, worsening-with-each-passing-hour pit in my stomach. Sure, it depends on the impending responsibilities I have the Monday that follows, but I typically need a coping mechanism. This usually involves getting sucked into the highly riveting — and always entertaining — love triangles on The Vampire Diaries, sweating out my worries with a good weightlifting or cardio session, and melting those worries away thanks to an at-home yoga video. My all-time favorite YouTube channel for the latter is Adriene Mishler's Yoga With Adriene, and she recently came out with a new 20-minute flow perfect for what I'm talking about: "Yoga to Heal Stress."

You'll start in Extended Child's Pose and work through Cat Cow. Then, you'll do single-legged pulses on all fours similar to Donkey Kicks that target the glutes, practice floor hip and leg stretches, and later use pillows for comfortable poses to promote relief. When the time came to settle down into the poses with my pillows, I was ready to surrender to the moment and relax. Following Adriene's lead, I rested two pillows on my knees, bent them generously, and proceeded into Seated Forward Fold with my torso and head supported by the pillows.

Adriene often calls positions like these "love caves," and, with the addition of the pillows, it definitely felt like a love cave of comfort and self-care. The final pose had me lying on one side with a pillow in between my knees and another under my head. This took tension off of my spine and really transported me into a calm state (I almost fell asleep and eased out of this end pose with a smile on my face).

I appreciated the 20-minute flow because it wasn't super time-consuming, but I didn't feel rushed either. Go ahead — test out the full yoga flow above! Though Adriene notes that you can't completely escape your thoughts, the key is to acknowledge them, then focus back on your breathing and how your body feels. It really did relax me; here's hoping it'll relax you, too. Plus, check out more yoga videos for stress here.