How to Relieve Stress + Anxiety with Crocodile Yoga Pose
/Feeling overwhelmed and anxious?
Is your breathing rapid and shallow?
Need to rest, relax and restore?
Create Calm With Crocodile!
Crocodile Pose is a restorative yoga pose perfect for both beginner and long-time yoga practitioners. It relaxes the whole body and regulates the nervous system while relieving stress and associated tension in the body.
This basic yoga pose facilitates a deep experience of diaphragmatic breathing while creating increased awareness of the back body. It also releases tightness in the shoulders and upper back, where many of us experience the physical manifestations of stress. Let’s calm down in crocodile!
The Benefits of Crocodile Yoga Pose for Kids
Crocodile Pose reduces stress and tension, promotes good sleep hygiene, regulates blood pressure and helps relieve anxiety. It provides deep relaxation for the muscles in the back and has a positive impact on posture and alignment of the spine.
Combining crocodile pose with somatics-inspired backward bends strengthens muscle groups including the hamstrings, glutes, and spinal extensors, before relaxing them. It also brings heightened awareness to the back of the body, increasing sensory integration, specifically proprioception.
Lifting one hand and the opposite leg fosters right-left brain connection, crossing the midline and expanding focus and concentration.
Engaging children’s imaginations through animal yoga poses helps younger practitioners maintain their focus during the practice. Pretending to be a sleepy crocodile makes it easier for kids to find extended periods of stillness in this pose.
Try THIS: Crocodile Pose in Yoga
Take deep breaths and yawn like a sleepy crocodile with Rachel in our yoga video below. If you enjoy this reptile yoga theme, check out our 20-minute Reptile Adventure on our kids yoga app (you can totally try the app for free if you don’t already have it.)
How To: Crocodile Pose Yoga
Lie down on the floor on your stomach.
Stack your forearms and rest your forehead on your wrists.
Extend the legs on the floor with feet about shoulder width apart.
Turn toes out or turn toes in and allow heels to flop open.
Close the eyes and allow your whole body to relax into the floor.
Relax your jaw, brow and facial muscles.
Release shoulders and shoulder blades.
Breathe slowly and deeply and notice what parts of your body are moving.
Stay in this pose for 5-10 minutes.
Tips for Mastering Crocodile Yoga Pose
Comfort is key in the pose. If it is not comfortable to rest with stacked forearms and head on wrists, you can stack palms and rest your forehead on the back of your hands instead.
Toes can point outward or toes can come together allowing the heels to flop open to find maximum relaxation in the legs.
Close the eyes, or if that feels uncomfortable, gently soften the gaze.
Train your breathing by inhaling deeply, feeling the belly pressing into the floor with each inhale. Try holding the breath for a few seconds, as feels easeful and comfortable before exhaling.
Increase awareness of breathing into the back and side body, feeling the lower back expand and the lower ribs flare out to the side with every inhale.
If you have difficulty releasing and relaxing the shoulders, try tightening them even further, holding that tension as you inhale and then relaxing on the exhale.
Kid-friendly Crocodile Pose Variations
Yoga poses that invite lying on the stomach create a sense of safety and security that reduces anxiety and calms the nervous system, stimulating the parasympathetic “rest and digest” response.
Practicing crocodile pose provides a perfect foundation for other prone yoga back bends like cobra and sphinx.
Try This: Baby Cobra Pose to resting in Crocodile pose
Invite children to pretend they are slithery snakes, strengthening the back and abdominal muscles before relaxing in crocodile pose. Sing and hiss along to this snake song in Spanish with Bridget!
Many of us have ineffective breathing patterns due to factors which may include stress, trauma, anxiety, poor posture, restrictive clothing, and various respiratory conditions. Both crocodile pose and cobra pose help us expand our breath capacity and our connections to the muscles of breathing.
Crocodile pose helps us tune into our diaphragmatic breathing, causing us to take deeper and fuller inhales. Cobra pose opens the front side of the body, chest and throat to expand the breath.
Both practices increase energy and vitality while supporting optimal health and well-being.
Elevate Your Curriculum
Did you know Yo Re Mi offers an array of children's musical yoga and mindfulness resources for your kids? You can:
- Download our app for exclusive videos and fun activities -- with no ads!
- Request a professional development workshop
- Join a 30-hour certified kids yoga teacher training
- Inquire about bringing the Yo Re Mi program to your students or family
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