What is Yin yoga?
Yin yoga is a calm, slow, and balancing form of yoga, which is passive in its execution.
In yin yoga, we use many of the basic poses from yang-based yoga, although the names of the poses are different. We go into the depths through yin yoga and enhance the yoga experience by going past the visible and superficial muscles. We reach deep into the body in yin, focusing on stretching ligaments, joints, and connective tissue.
This releases tension, which can be physical, mental, or emotional. Tension that we do not release accelerates aging, reduces circulation in the body, and can create various imbalances within us.
Your connective tissue - the fascia
The fascia is like a network of threads that we want to keep flexible.
Your fascia is the internal sensitive matrix of soft tissue in your body. Image: Adina Voicu
Age, injuries and wound healing, and stress, among other things, cause the connective tissue to tighten. This leads to a tense and inflexible body. Practicing yin yoga provides great benefits in delaying or eliminating these stages in the body. Yin yoga’s focus on stretching the connective tissue, the tissue that holds us and every part of the body together - from muscles and bones to organs and cells - makes us stretch the whole body on the inside. When the connective tissue is soft and flexible, pain and aches in the body are reduced, the immune system works more effectively, and the body’s internal organs are given better conditions to keep us in balance and harmony. Like a softening massage on the outside, we can thus similarly soften the inside through yin yoga.
Go Yinside Image: Sara Vaughn
With a focus on our inner world in yin yoga, the focus is on our energy body, our mental body, and our emotional body. A balance in each of these bodies and between them gives us better health and an experience of well-being. Yin yoga focuses on getting our energy channels - meridians or nadis - as clean and healthy as possible, contributing to the energy or life force - qi or prana- which can flow freely and unhindered.
Image: Mohamed Hassan
Some effects that yin yoga can give you:
🧘🏽♀️ a more flexible body
🧘🏽♀️ relieve or eliminate pain
🧘🏽♀️ lower levels of stress
🧘🏽♀️ a balanced nervous system
🧘🏽♀️ calming mind
🧘🏽♀️ better sleep
🧘🏽♀️ increased capacity to concentrate and focus
🧘🏽♀️ connection with your inner True Self
🧘🏽♀️ heal your emotions
How does it work?
By creating time to go inward and learn to listen to your body, you will gain greater awareness of your body. In the long run, you will silence the constant chatter in your mind a bit and find an increased calmness within you. Through relaxation exercises, you will activate the parasympathetic part of your central nervous system (CNS) and thus help the body to recover. You will keep the positions for 3-7 minutes and in the silence, feelings can come up that you may need to face, heal and let go of.
Overall, your yin yoga practice will create better space within, a deeper connection with yourself and your emotions, a more flexible body and mind, and with more vital and flowing energy you will nurture your inner organs.
Find your shape of each pose, relax into it, and breathe deep and slow. Image: Sara Vaughn
Let your Yin yoga practice be your balancing daily practice!