Yin yoga what is

Long Yin yoga holds are also known to release repressed or stored emotions, leaving the yogi feeling lighter, clearer and completely relaxed. Yin yoga is an excellent practice for beginners. It gives them plenty of time to uncover the unique benefits of individual poses without worrying about tricky transitions. Those recovering from an injury or looking to lengthen versus strengthen will feel right at home in a Yin yoga class.

Remember Me. What is Yin Yoga? On the surface, a Yin practice might seem uneventful. The benefits of Yin Yoga Like all yoga practice, Yin has a different effect on everyone. Others find the postures and meditative state to be some kind of torture… When we pause and hold Yin postures — which often target the hips, pelvis and lower spine — we can experience feelings, sensations and emotions that are easy to avoid in our fast-paced world and yang classes.

Keen to get started with Yin Yoga? What are the health benefits? Lengthens connective tissue. Increases flexibility. Boosts your circulation. Reduces stress levels. How to practice. Who is it good for? The bottom line.

More On This Topic Motivation. Sarah Regan. Janeil Mason, M. With Gwen Dittmar. Personal Growth. Jason Wachob. Eliza Sullivan. Latest Articles Integrative Health. Abby Moore. Integrative Health. If you gently stretch connective tissue by holding a yin pose for a long time, the body will respond by making them a little longer and stronger—which is exactly what you want. When most people are introduced to the ideas of Yin Yoga, they shudder at the thought of stretching connective tissue.

Although yin work with the knee would seek full flexion and extension bending and straightening , it would never aggressively stretch this extremely vulnerable joint. In general, a yin approach works to promote flexibility in areas often perceived as nonmalleable, especially the hips, pelvis, and lower spine.

Of course, you can overdo yin practice, just as you can overdo any exercise. Since yin practice is new to many yogis, the indications of overwork may also be unfamiliar. More subtle signals include muscular gripping or spasm or a sense of soreness or misalignment—in chiropractic terms, being out of adjustment—especially in your neck or sacroiliac joints.

If a pose causes symptoms like these, stop practicing it for a while. Or, at the very least, back way out of your maximum stretch and focus on developing sensitivity to much more subtle cues. Proceed cautiously, only gradually extending the depth of poses and the length of time you spend in them.

There are two principles that differentiate yin practice from more yang approaches to yoga: holding poses for at least several minutes and stretching the connective tissue around a joint. To do the latter, the overlying muscles must be relaxed. You can demonstrate this by gently pulling on your right middle finger, first with your right hand tensed and then with the hand relaxed.

When the hand is relaxed, you will feel a stretch in the joint where the finger joins the palm; the connective tissue that knits the bones together is stretching. When the hand is tensed, there will be little or no movement across this joint, but you will feel the muscles straining against the pull. In a seated forward bend, for example, you can gently pull with your arms to increase the stretch on the connective tissues of your spine.

But in order for these connective tissues to be affected, you must relax the muscles around the spine itself. Because Yin Yoga requires that the muscles be relaxed around the connective tissue you want to stretch, not all yoga poses can be done effectively—or safely—as yin poses.

To help my students keep these distinctions in mind, I usually refer to yin poses by different names than their more familiar yang cousins. All seated meditation postures aim at one thing: holding the back upright without strain or slouching so that energy can run freely up and down the spine. The fundamental factor that affects this upright posture is the tilt of the sacrum and pelvis.