Catherine adds yoga before bed to her evening, and her hips are thanking her

Last summer I spent a lot of time dealing with sciatica, which had me limping and having trouble with climbing stairs. Thanks to many months of physical therapy, I got better. My gait became steady and strong, and I could climb stairs without pain or favoring one side. Yay!

Maintaining my hard-won stability and strength takes effort, and I’ve done my hip exercises regularly. But I noticed that if I read in bed before sleeping, I would be creaky or have some hip pain– not enough to wake me up, but noticeable.

Reenter yoga before bed. I used to do some rotation of gentle yoga exercises before bed most nights, but for no particular reason stopped.In the past few weeks, I restarted, and noticed happy changes:

• no joint pain in bed during the night or in the morning
• easier walking around in the morning
• a little more stability and flexibility in general

What I do varies– sometimes it’s mini sun salutations with warrior poses and twists and forward folds, other times I’m on my mat in the living room doing twists and hamstring stretches with my yoga strap. I sometimes do tree pose as well, although I’m less balanced in the evening. So far I haven’t fallen over, which I’m taking as a win.

I’m not sure it matters exactly what yoga poses I do. But I’m thinking it does matter that I do it. So I’m doing it. Having restarted my posts for the 226 workouts in 2026 is helping motivate me to do it (almost) every night. Yay again!

Readers, are you doing or re-doing something that’s making you feel good or better? I’d love to hear from you.