How Yin Yoga Benefits Your Physical and Mental Health
Many of us are familiar with the Taoist conceptions of Yin and Yang, suggesting that opposites are needed in order for harmony to exist. These concepts also help clarify how human thought and activity work. With yoga gaining the popular status it has, many are well acquainted with the ‘Yang’ styles of yoga, such as Vinyasa flow, is a more active practice focusing on muscles and blood flow, building strength, stamina, and flexibility. However, have you heard of the ‘Yin’ side of yoga? If you are one with an active, often hectic life or just interested in becoming invested in meditation for inner focus, read on.
What is Yin Yoga?
Contrasting from the Yang side of yoga that deals with movement, Yin Yoga helps you deal with sensations that you may not have reached outside of the practice as it connects feelings we tend to ignore. Yin Yoga is about finding stillness and cooling in the body, it is the perfect practice to help with dealing with the stress of everyday active lives, as well as a contrast to cool down from more intense exercises and cardio. This Yin Yoga style targets deep connective tissues, bones, joints, fascia and ligaments in the body through slow and meditative movements. Unlike other styles of yoga, Yin Yoga is done mainly on the floor, seated or lying down, then holding poses from three to ten minutes to work into connective tissues, mainly working into the lower part of the body, like the hips, pelvis, inner thighs, and lower spine. This practice is meant to relax, rejuvenate, ground yourself as well as benefit your mind, body, and soul to ease yourself from the daily stresses. It may be a new experience for many, especially those who are used to doing quick workouts to “get out of the way”. This will not only benefit your mind and body but also teach yourself how to allow yourself a moment to relax and connect to yourself.
Impact on Physical Health
Oftentimes many of us can view physical activity purely as something that can help us lose weight or a kind of strenuous workout that sometimes will leave us with our body feeling more tense. While many forms of workouts benefit your physical well-being, it’s important to pair your intense workouts with a soothing and recovering practice, such as Yin Yoga to relax your muscles from said taxing workouts. The Yin Yoga poses are targeted physically on connective tissues, or more specifically the fascia, a framework for our form.
The fascia responds to slow and steady poses as gently stretching connective tissues by holding poses longer which then make the fascia longer and stronger. Now, why do we care about the fascia so much? Well firstly, the muscles of the human body are encased in fascia, which is a continuous web of tissue that weaves in and around not only the muscles but the organs, nerves, and lymph. Aging and lifestyle choices cause fascia to become dehydrated, stiff, and weak. To keep our fascia healthy, it needs to be kept hydrated and subject to gentle pressure. Fascia needs at least three to ten minutes to affect its elasticity and Yin Yoga is one of the most effective ways to improve flexibility and release tension due to these long held poses. When in these poses, the purpose isn’t just to sit in them and wait for the minutes to run out, but by actually doing focused breathing into each pose then boosting your circulation. When targeting deeper tissues and ligaments it brings more oxygen into your body and muscles helping increase blood flow and circulation. Long-held postures allow the nervous system to rest as well the muscles, and the organs are stimulated due to gentle compression.
Common injuries and strains from everyday activities can be reduced as the range of motion done by doing Yin Yoga is increased, along with the health of fascia. Dealing with preventing more long-term issues, studies show that Yin Yoga can show great reduction in plasma ADM levels. ADM or adrenomedullin, exerts growth promoting and growth inhibitory effects on cells. These plasma ADM levels are elevated years before the onset of several major chronic diseases.
Impact on Mental and Emotional Health
Just like other physical activities, Yin Yoga makes a significant impact on mental well-being as well, if not more. Its focus on calmness and mindfulness make Yin style a tool for relaxation and coping with stress, therefore, improving mental health. In addition, improves your energy flow of chi in organs and again mental and emotional benefits.
Yin Yoga practice, reduces perceived stress, anxiety, depression, and sleep problems. Struggling with getting enough sleep can occur from disruptions with the imbalance between the body and the mind. To repeat, when living an active, fast-paced lifestyle, Yin Yoga will help ground your energy and provide you with a more refreshing rest. With Yin Yoga, the unprocessed emotional energy that is stored in our organs, muscles, and tissues is released as inner difficult truths are then forced to be confronted with open arms and without judgement. As briefly explained with physical well-being, the deep breaths in Yin style poses slow heart rate, lower blood pressure, and calm nervous system which can be extremely beneficial to the majority of us during this unsettling time.
This practice may also be able to reduce physiological and psychological risk factors associated with chronic diseases. Yin Yoga can improve various psychological health related factors including stress, anxiety, depression, and sleep problems which are also associated with chronic diseases, especially cardiovascular disease and cancer. An important thing to always remember, your physical and mental being are closely connected and mental health has a big impact on physical health and vice versa. If either are poorly cared for, this can lead to an increased risk of some conditions.
What You Will Experience During Practice
Now, what is it that you will encounter when you begin your Yin Yoga practice? First thing to make sure you do is create a setting you can feel comfortable in. Preferably a room away from anxieties and luckily you don’t need much room as it’s not a practice that will require large amounts of space to move around.
Throughout the Yin practice, discomfort and comfort are both faced and explored leading you to slowly release and become aware of things built up in your mind. This will naturally carry into your everyday life in how you face situations and your emotions. Due to these mental waves that hit you during your practice, you’ll eventually feel a sense of openness, patience, and more peace in your mental being and life that will lead you to continue your Yin practice. With this process you’ll get intimate with your emotions and reconnect with your body in a compassionate way and will heal you deeply, along with promoting self care and love.
Along with the fresh discomfort with emotions, you may have some stress physically and slight pressure in the positions you stretch into as these are poses that your body may not be used to. Remind yourself to breathe deeply and only do as much as you can, if you feel sharp stabbing pain don’t hurt yourself by pushing through and instead loosen the pose or leave the pose you’re in. Remember, just like other physical activity while it’s good to push yourself you don’t want to go past your limit and injure yourself instead of reaching the meant intent to make your body feel better. It’s also guaranteed that this practice may leave you sore after the first few times you do it, as the tissue is temporarily weaker from doing poses your body isn’t used to. After more practice your tissue will feel more relieved with less chronic tension and tightness.
Now that you understand the basics of Yin Yoga and how beneficial it can be to you, I encourage you to allow time out of your day a few times a week dedicated to this practice. It’s okay if you feel sore or even if you don’t! You have to remind yourself all our bodies and minds are different and we can’t compare someone else’s journey with our own. It’s perfectly fine if it takes time to really connect with yourself, just allow your emotions to be released and reveal what it is that you truly need emotionally in life. Just because it’s not a typical sweaty workout does not make it any less of a workout for your body as well as your mind.
Good luck with your new practice and enjoy the long awaited release!
