Why You Need Yin Yoga In Your Life.
5 August 2022
Natasha Nicholas | Clinic Director
5 min read.
Why you need Restorative Yin Yoga in your life and 5 hidden benefits of the practice.
Modern life encourages us to push the needle towards constantly doing, producing, and accomplishing. However, our bodies constantly seek to restore balance and equilibrium and so we naturally oscillate between Yang and Yin energetics.
Yin Yoga is a restorative practice that incorporates long-held, passive, and supported poses aimed at down-regulating the nervous system and working into the highly sensory fascial system.
Yin and Yang's forces influence our body’s regulation. Yang energy guides the sympathetic nervous system. This system drives our "fight and flight" response, which gives us the energy to accomplish tasks, play, compete, and when in danger fight or flee. Our parasympathetic nervous system is guided by yin energies, this system allows the body to rest, repair, and digest. In addition, and importantly this system guides the other branch of parasympathetic activity which supports our social engagement system. In this state of calm arousal, we are better able to socialise and co-regulation with others.
These branches work in a harmonious flux until chronic stressors are present or a threat overwhelms our nervous system which can see us become stuck in a survival response - a state that when chronic and constant, can deplete the body of good health and create intolerable emotional and cognitive states.
Restorative Yin Yoga provides us with a modality to down-regulate the stress response and up-regulate restorative activity which will guide the body back to a balanced state. The gentle but longer holds of the poses soften and nourish the fascial system which as a highly sensory network supports pain care, improves balance, and mobility, and bolsters the rest and restore state.
In addition to these quite well-known benefits, there are some hidden benefits of practicing Restorative Yin Yoga.
5 "Hidden" Benefits of Yin Yoga
Yin Strengthens Interoception
Interoception is the perception of sensations from inside the body, which includes heartbeat, breath rate as well as autonomic nervous system activity related to emotions. When we hold a pose for the time we can start to fine-tune our awareness. As we learn to listen to the body, we collect information about different stresses on the tissues, their location, intensity, and quality all provide a glimpse into our inner worlds. Here we can begin to cultivate an internal state of balance and better understand how to influence our nervous system, monitor emotions, and even manage pain.
Off the mat, these skills translate in remarkable ways. For example, being able to sense muscular tension within the body and elect to soften our grip or change posture. Perhaps we notice an elevated heart rate when we’re nervous and choosing to press pause and take a slow deep breath. Yin Yoga teaches us to track our thoughts, giving us time to intervene before we dive into a negative spiral and provides a space where we can learn the language of felt sense, our body's somatic language uncovering the buried information that is getting in the way of our thriving.
Yin Teaches Us How to Respond Rather Than React
Yin teaches us the power of the pause, the power of 'Hu Wai' -the action of non-action. Learning to sit with discomfort, uncertainty, stillness, and the sensations we tend to want to avoid. Life can be hard, pain, uncertainty, disappointment, shame, resentment, anger, jealousy, and fear are all part of the human spectrum. Because we’re human, we have a deep-seated compulsion to distract ourselves from discomfort. When we practice yin, however, we have the opportunity to stay open to whatever arises. We can find and tend to our stuck points with tenderness and grace.
Learning how to stay soft and vulnerable humbles us. Off the mat, we become more resilient to the ups and downs of life and become better equipped to navigate stressful situations.
Yin Allows Us to Explore the Subtle Body
In some ways, yin yoga is a hybrid of asana and meditation. We may use the poses as a way to target specific tissues of the body, or we may find the appropriate comfort to rest, either way, yin invites us to cultivate stillness through exploration of the breath and an awareness of sensations as they arise. In this space between asana and meditation, we find room to consider the subtle body—meridian lines, the chakras, energy points, and pathways.
If we look through the lens of TCM, meridian lines are like streams that run through your body. They recirculate fluids, moisten the body, and deliver nutrients throughout. Each of these lines corresponds to an organ of your body. The main function of the organs is to store our essence (nutrients and Qi) and to transform and transport these nutrients. Imagine these organs as hubs or energetic centers of the body and the meridian lines as the means of transportation.
We may experience pain, sluggishness, discomfort, or emotional disturbance when there is an obstruction in these pathways. By holding a yin pose for the time we stimulate the meridian lines that run through our arms, legs, and torso, clearing obstructions and allowing for free passage of Qi/energy.
Yin Awakens Compassion and Empathy
Yin provides us with an opportunity to practice self-compassion and immerse ourselves in a practice that is introspective, nourishing, and medicinal. We are forced to face ourselves, our limitations, and our discomfort and move into a space of humbleness and vulnerability.
The tendency to guard and protect ourselves is human instinct. When we continually shut down to experiences that cause pain or that make us feel vulnerable, we contract our thinking. Through yin, we can learn how to stay open, embracing sensations and emotions as they arise. Training in opening and softening allows us to arrive at the heart of ourselves. Here we discover the depth of our compassion and empathy.
Yin teaches us to slow down and see the unseen.
Yin yoga slows everything down, allowing us to cultivate awareness. Off the mat, this translates to enhanced self-awareness, awareness of others, and awareness of the subtleties of our world. It teaches us to seek out the glimmers of kindness, compassion, and natural wonder. Yin creates the desire and ability to put yourself in the way of beauty, to seek out and soak up the awe of the little things. Learning to notice the way the sun filters through the trees, birds singing on their branches, or the smell of freshly cut grass being carried by the breeze; and noticing the way these small things nourish us, is an unexpected gift of the practice. Yin yoga helps us to observe and be with the subtleties in life. Unclouded by performance or expectations, we can awaken to our internal environment, our wisdom, creativity, and curiosity.
If your life is dominated by Yang energetics, if you are seeking balance and are seeking to see more, sense more, and walk through life with more ease, then I invite you to give Restorative Yin Yoga a go.
If you would like to join me for a Restorative Yin Yoga class, reach out by email info@threepointsclinic or call 0408465928 to find out the locations and times of the Restorative Yin Yoga group classes we facilitate or find out about booking in for a truly bespoke experience of a private yin yoga session.