I don’t know about you, but after a year and a half off, this festival season has felt exceptionally swift and intense! Our fitness levels have been challenged and our stamina put to the test. Now that we’re slowly coming back to reality, but perhaps also wallowing in some post-season blues, I can’t think of a better subject for a guest post for you all…
Introducing the wonderful Lucy Tyler aka ‘Yoga In Yoga Out,’ a yoga teacher and festival lover who aims to “bring that festival feeling on your yoga mat all year long.” In this post, Lucy is sharing with us some dreamy yoga techniques to help kick the festival blues, bring us back into our bodies and prepare us for next season.
Yogis at Standon Calling, photo by Fernando Bonenfant for Here & Now
We had almost, (almost!) forgotten what life in the field was like, how good it felt to step back onto home turf, to connect with like-minded souls, but this summer somehow some of us finally managed to return to our mecca and taste that festival freedom again.
🍄 Our hearts and souls have been topped back up,
⛺️ Our tents have been aired,
✨ Our sequins have been worn,
🌲 And the wristband tan is back!
But the season was short-lived and those festival blues are sure to be creeping up on you again… or maybe you didn’t even get to a festival this summer leaving you with MAJOR festival blues.
Festival comedowns always hit me so hard. I could honestly say that I leave a little part of me at every festival I go to and almost feel like I don’t fit into society when returning to the real world. The field is my home and yoga is my self-care, so I want to share with all you fellow festival-goers the yoga practices I use to kick those post-festival blues that I know will help you too!
✨ Just like glitter they never fully go away, but with these 7 handy tips, we can avoid going back into that depressive hole that we all know so well. ✨
Before we all get ready to hibernate until next season, here are a selection of my favourite, most effective, yoga techniques to help you kick the festival blues until we return!
7 Yoga Techniques for Festival Lovers
1. Breathing technique for hangover anxiety
We’ve all been there. You’ve just got home from your festival, the dreaded hangover anxiety is kicking in, your heart feels like it’s about to pump out of your chest from all the booze over the weekend. Is this resonating??
So first up is “Alternate nostril breathing” (nadi shodhana pranayama) because it’s my holy grail when it comes to managing all types of anxieties – including beer fear!!
Watch the video above to get the hang of this breathing technique and practice it every day to reduce overall anxiety or whenever that hangover anxiety kicks in!
2. Journaling to manage brain fog
Journaling is how we process and let go. There’s something sacred about getting your thoughts onto paper, instantly freeing them from your mind.
This will help you to clear that festival brain fog that has been clouding your clarity after a season of sleep-deprived nights whilst still holding onto those magical festival moments.
I want you to talk/ vent to your journal like you would your best friend, about anything and everything that comes to mind. Regular brain dumps are great therapy for brain fog.
Try this prompt to get your pen flowing:
My most memorable moment this season was when… 🖊
3. Child’s pose for contentment
Child’s pose (balasana) is such a lush pose if you’re feeling blue or depressed! This is your ‘I don’t have the energy but I kinda wanna move’ go-to pose.
Once you’ve arisen from catching up on lost sleep, Balasana will help you to let go of those festival blues. Your third eye, already beaming open from an eye-opening festival, continues to charge as your forehead connects to the earth.
From hands and knees, (table top)
Take your knees out a lil wider,
Bring your big toes to touch,
As you exhale, sink your hips back towards your heels,
Reaching your arms out front ,
Or down by your side, your choice.
Child’s pose is your opportunity to play, so go ahead moving with cat/ cow spinal movements to child pose, feeling into your body, get all divine feline goddesses up in here!
4. 3 Yoga Poses to relieve festival-season shoulder tension!
Carrying the weight of your tent and set up on your shoulders, to and from the field, sleeping on the floor, having your arms up in the air for hours, will have definitely taken a toll on your shoulder muscles.
We can’t fully let go if we are carrying tension from past events around in our bodies, so here are three yoga poses to help relieve that post-festival season shoulder ache.
Plus you can do these all whilst face planting the floor! Bonus!
Try it, feel how tense your shoulders are, taking 5 long deep breaths in each asana (pose).
5. Guided meditation to transport you back to the fields!
If you really can’t bear the thought of waiting until next season, then why not close your eyes and take yourself back to your tent!
In this short guided meditation, I re-immerse you in the sounds of a festival morning, whilst keeping your mind focused on your breath, so you can take yourself back to the field whenever you need!
Meditating is another way for us to disconnect from the real world, and step into our imagination, dreams and desires, just like we do at festivals!
Withdrawing from the external world, going into your internal world, connecting you back to your authentic self, to the real you that you would normally only parade at festivals. Am I right? Practice letting go of thoughts and control.
6. 3 Heart Opening Poses
Feeling the love?? One of the best things about a festival is that it attracts open-minded people with open hearts just like you!
After a weekend of connecting with our people, we can quickly become closed off to the rest of the world on our return and feel the need to go within.
But this just isn’t who we are!
So we use heart-opening poses (usually some kind of backbend) to open up the front of the body, open up the heart space, coming out of our usual hunched over, closed-off posture.
To keep our hearts as open and connected as they are at festivals.
Here are three that you can try, you’ll feel amazing and so much more open afterwards. Back bending poses also reset your central nervous system that runs through your spinal cord, so are also great for anxiety sufferers.
Reclined butterfly with bolster or pillow.
Low lunge with a back-bend
Wheel
7. Vinyasa Flow – Moving Meditation
Find static meditation a little uneasy? That’s totally normal! This is why we flow!
Vinyasa means movement with breath, and we flow to music, our other healer. Allowing us to drop into our zone, to move and groove intuitively, just like on the dance floor.
There’s a place for that energy on your yoga mat, where you can express yourself freely without anyone judging, in the same way that you can at festivals.
Put your fave festival feels on and move with your body and breath to the rhythm of the beat. Letting go of what the shapes you make look like, focusing more on what they feel like.
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I hope these techniques help you fellow festival goers, to not only kick those festival blues, but to raise your overall vibrational frequency!
If you enjoyed these tips, get heaps more by signing up to my mailing list!
Showing up for you, so that you can show up with the energy you want to see in the world. Armed with glitter ofc!
Peace out! I’ll see you in the fields x
Thank you SO MUCH to Lucy for sharing these epic tips. Make sure that you get following her on Instagram where she shares so much easy, accessible, yoga goodness and deffo get signed up to her mailing list too! We love having a variety of voices from across the festival space represented on That Festival Life, so if you’ve got an idea for a guest post get in touch here!
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