I can't recall the first time I experienced Restorative Yoga... After my first visit to a yoga class with my mother during my teens, the final relaxation pose - Savasana - was naturally a hit with me and for a long time it was the thing that made me work through every sweaty upbeat practice. I didn't know really what it was about the Corpse Pose that felt so good but having a full yogic practice of passive, gentle goodness is something so soothing for mind and body. (Especially once you get past falling asleep and audibly snoring in class...)
Like I said, I have no idea when I took my first full restorative practice but certainly its one of my favourite things to do. I've had comments from non-yogis about the Restorative practice like " are you laying there having a nap?" or " that's not doing much" when in fact , you're actually doing yourself a huge service.
On the one hand, we all could do with taking time to stop every now and again. With busy lives, just stopping is actually pretty hard to do, so scheduling in some time to stop does makes sense. Even if it seems like a silly premise, I know I for one have had to be told many times to "just stop for a bit".
Restorative yoga is a beautiful and hugely beneficial practice. You don't have to have any athletic inclination at all - bonus! - and the process, whilst gentle, has a profound affect on the body.
There are few occasions when we actually allow the body to fully relax. Even when we sleep, we can't guarantee total relaxation and can continue to hold muscular tension, especially if our sleeping habits aren't great. Do you ever wake with something like a crick in the neck, or similar..? Ergo, sleepy-time being your daily relaxation is NOT a given.
When we take a restorative practice however, we intentionally support as much of the physical body as possible, allowing total muscular, and mental relaxation. Certainly from my own experience, you can really feel the difference between this and going to sleep every night! (I think there's probably something in the modern subconscious too that tells us "because we're in a class and scheduled to relax, its ok, we're allowed!")
When we give the body the opportunity to slow down, the breathing and heart rates drop, blood pressure lowers, and we slip into the parasympathetic nervous system function, more familiarly known as Rest & Digest mode. Here, the body has the chance to switch off quick fire response systems and deal with, not just digestion and metabolising of food, but much of the cellular repair work that cannot happen when we are constantly on the go. In this state, the glandular system of the body is also able to do its job, releasing enzymes, lubricants and more, to maintain a well functioning system.
When we consider being in our quick-fire setting, constantly on the go with no quality down-time, its no wonder we start to develop little ailments, perhaps gut discomfort, or maybe a bit of weight gain: We aren't giving the body a chance to stop and process: Ultimately, parasympathetic mode is our essential state of Recovery. The more time we spend in here, the better we can deal with everything life has to throw at us. So, the next time someone suggests you don't do much in a Restorative Yoga practice, you can smile to yourself with the knowledge your body is actually very busy indeed, doing all its repair work, and an awful lot of good!
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