Yes, Christi, you are right. By “kriya” I am referring to automatic movements resembling yoga asanas. It is an intuitive movement which was quite vigorous in the very beginning and has smoothed out a lot. In between where phases I retraced nadis with the fingertips running along my body. It evolves and focuses on different areas using different asanas/movements over time. Right now the kriyas are lot about deep bending backwards and stretching in splits. The movements are slow but I guess they could stir up energy.
Blanche, you describe your parenting very lovingly. I like it a lot. 
Automatic asanas like these usually smooth out the energy and remove distractions that might occur in your meditation afterwards.
I wondered in the past (when you were newer to this forum and you were writing about these ‘kriyas’) if there was a pranayama element involved, but it sounds like there isn’t. So it seems to be a slow asana session, helping to quiet you down and prepare you for meditation, as AYP recommends.
The length of it, of course, needs to be sensible. You have probably come across a point made by Yogani in the lessons that any practice taken beyond a certain length of time can lead to overload. You are of course the best person to figure out what is the right length of your asana session by experimenting with it a little.
You have already cut back significantly on some advanced practices, haven’t you? You probably need to let that experiment run its course. Let us know how you get on.
Recently I am experimenting with doing meditation/sitting first and the kriyas afterwards. As exercising for example is not recommended to be done before sitting, I thought I’d give a try. Maybe it helps smoothing things out.
It is mostly true, but not always. Actually, the kriyas include nauli kriya from time to time and more seldom a light version of breath of fire.
Yes, I have already cut back significantly on practices, leaving the remaining ones without mudras and bandhas. I shortend the practice lengths a bit, SBP form 10 min to 5 min, DM from 20 min to 15 min. Kriyas still take most time with 40 min right now, I considered this time reasonable and not too long for an asana session.
It is mostly true, but not always. Actually, the kriyas include nauli kriya from time to time and more seldom a light version of breath of fire.
If you get a lot of this in your asana practice, then you need to self pace more. Both nauli and pranayama will stimulate the energy. [quote="Cato"] Recently I am experimenting with doing meditation/sitting first and the kriyas afterwards. As exercising for example is not recommended to be done before sitting, I thought I'd give a try. [/quote] If it feels like a workout, then it's not suitable as a prelude to meditation. If it's quieting, then it is.
Hi Cato
I second BRC
Nauli is too strong and i know you need to cut down more.
Cut down prsctices now or you’ll be forced to stop them for good or hating them because they take too much from family time (another overload belief)
This is not what you want to hear that is why you have been postponing cutting down at the expense of your ccomfort.
I don’t mince my words and we are not here to give chit chat loose advices. We are here to solve the issue at hand which is your clear overload
My 2 cents…i hope you will listen for your benefit
It does not feel like a workout. However, it tends to feel sexual regularly. Sometimes it feels like those kriyas bring me near orgasm, very rarely even beyond.
Maheswari, I appreciate your words and I take the advice of the experienced practitioners around seriously. Till the disussion in this thread, I did not realize those kriyas might be one reason for the effects I experience. I cut back on energetic (sitting) practices properly and now have some more means to find balance.
Ah, you knew all along that it hikes kundalini. You could have told us! 
One more thing to add
Although kriyas are mentioned in ayp but many schools including the one where I did yoga ttc and attc always insisted that kriyas are only to be practiced in retreat mode never when back to our ordinary life cause they are too much to handle energetically.
I’m sorry when I postponed relevant information, those correlations aren’t obvious to me. I wasn’t aware that sexual feeling is actually synonymous with stimulating kundalini and that again with working energetically respetively increasing the energetic level. However, I am happy that I did mention it. It gives me another piece of my puzzle. As I already mentioned, changing from an ashtanga flow to a kriya session already helped and gave some relief. Obviously I will have to take another look at this part and exchange the kriya session with a more grounding routine of asanas.
I’d like to add one more question to complete this: Are there yoga styles that can generally be seen as essentially grounding? I know that yin yoga is often regarded to fulfill this. I am not asking for special poses (i.e. standing poses), but yoga styles in general.
Hi Cato
You have to try Yin yoga and see for yourself if that works for you
That said it is perfectly alright to choose other types of physical activity like swimming, walking, running etc… These are grounding for sure , there is no testing period and observing if you are overloading or not.Plus they are fun and a nice change.Take that shortcut imo.