Have you heard about restorative yoga?
Some people say this is an advanced practice. What do you think?
Restorative yoga involves spending from 3 to 8min in a “relatively” comfortable pose. The goal won’t be stretching, but it might be a consequence of the practice as long as no pain is involved.
Not all of us have the capacity to see the importance of taking quality downtime and allow your brain to stop controlling everything.
I used to think, that practicing restorative yoga or taking time to rest was a waste of time.
Yes, I always love training, and I used to push my self to the limits, most of the time
Maybe you are like me or maybe you have already a good understanding of how important is to take time to rest and recover
“Regardless of what are you training for, a good rest is essential to high-level performance, but many still overtrain and feel guilty when they take a day off. The body repairs and strengthens itself in the time between workouts, and continuous training can actually weaken the strongest athletes”.- Elizabeth Quinn- verywellfit.com
Rest days are critical to sports performance for a variety of reasons. Some are physiological and some are psychological.
Rest is physically necessary so that the muscles can repair, rebuild, and strengthen. For recreational athletes, building in rest days can help maintain a better balance between home, work, and fitness goals.
When your life is racing full-speed ahead, so is your mind. Restorative yoga helps provide that physical and mental balance to prevent stress and anxiety, through the use of props (blankets, yoga blocks or pillows) that allow you to hold poses longer, giving you all the benefits of deep, passive stretching.
Here are some of the benefits of practicing Restorative Yoga:
🧘🏻♀️ It allows your muscles to recover with gentle moves.
Is not about the quantity is about the quality of staying still and present when performing poses
🧘🏻♀️It helps us to slow down and cultivate the skill of conscious relaxation.
Depending on you lifestyle, most of us are programmed to “do” a lot—it keeps us engaged and makes us feel productive and in control. But our habit of running around, conquering our to-do lists, and fueling ourselves with coffee and ambition can often be a way we avoid deep discomforts and unwelcome feelings in the body and mind.
Restorative yoga asks us to stop engaging in all the doing and face what we really need to look at about ourselves. To learn about, befriend, and care for the whole of ourselves in a way we are not used to. This is an essential step for health and healing, for true renewal. A lot of people think relaxing is about letting go, but rather than throwing out, we are trying to make space for what’s uncomfortable and to allow more space for the full experience of who we are.
🧘🏻♀️ It helps us discover where we are holding tension.
Once you come to this realization, you can make small changes in your everyday life to reduce the stress and tension you allow to build up in your body.
🧘🏻♀️ Enhance the flexibility
All forms of yoga help make you bendier, but regular use of restorative poses leads you to a passive flexibility session
However, Restorative yoga is not a stretching class and there is no end goal involved, like being able to touch your toes after 10 sessions. You are exploring what happens when you release the tension your body habitually holds.
🧘🏻♀️The slower pace and deep breathing that you get in a restorative yoga practice triggers the parasympathetic nervous system and helps us to reduce the level of stress. Optimizing energy flow to the organs, tissue renewal, and reduced “fight or flight” response.
Little Note:
Restorative Yoga is not the same as Yin Yoga, we will talk more about it in the next post.
Here I am sharing a video tutorial I have created for yo to give it a try and practice at home.
If you practice aerial acrobatics , pole dance or you are curious about how yoga can help you stay flexible and strong join the private facebook group “Yoga for every Acrobat”..
Where I am sharing yoga tutorial specific for keeping our body strong flexible and mobil.
