Relax and Unwind With Somatic Yoga. Here’s How, Plus the 5 Best Poses to Try

Yoga that’s actually enjoyable and meditative could be surprisingly laborious to seek out lately. (For those who’ve ever discovered your self doing biceps curls in a “yoga” class, you recognize what I’m speaking about.) And whereas there’s a spot for yoga lessons that really feel extra like interval exercises, typically you want a apply that means that you can decelerate and reset.

One antidote to the yoga developments that make your coronary heart race (like “snake yoga”—sure, you learn that proper) is somatic yoga, a apply that mixes somatic actions—the place you give attention to how an train makes you’re feeling by shifting your physique as gently and compassionately as attainable—and yoga postures and that emphasizes the mind-body connection.

However what, precisely, is somatic yoga, and what makes it so completely different from the sorts of lessons you’re in all probability extra conversant in? We requested two veteran lecturers to clarify, and to share the advantages of this distinctive apply.

Okay, severely, what’s somatic yoga?

Somatic yoga lessons sometimes embrace yoga poses you already know, plus somatic workout routines, that are sometimes easy, small actions geared toward selling extra consciousness inside the physique.

However in somatic yoga, it’s usually not a lot what you’re doing that’s distinctive, however how you’re doing it. “We’re training holding our consideration on what we’re doing all through the whole apply,” says Lisa Tatham Flynn, a New York Metropolis-based trainer licensed in Hanna Somatic Training and trauma-informed yoga remedy. “It’s a first-person, inside, lived-experience apply,” in contrast to in another sorts of yoga, the place you might be centered in your physique from the skin in.

Not all somatic yoga lessons look precisely the identical, and completely different lecturers might have completely different approaches (some might incorporate parts of yoga remedy, for example, or Feldenkrais Methodology). However listed below are some ways in which a somatic yoga class would possibly feel and appear completely different from different types of yoga.

1. It’s about how you’re feeling, not attaining a posture

Not like in different types of yoga, the place the main focus could also be on attaining a posture or a motion with the right kind or to the fullest extent, in somatic yoga, the precise shapes that the physique is making aren’t so related, says Armen Menechyan, a Los Angeles-based trainer specializing in yoga remedy and somatic practices and founding father of Pür Pleasure.

“There’s no proper manner {that a} posture must look,” Menechyan says. As a substitute, somatic yoga encourages shifting inside a spread that’s snug to your physique, and approaching the motion with a way of playfulness and exploration.

2. You’ll in all probability spend a lot of time on the ground

The primary thirty to forty minutes of Menechyan’s lessons are sometimes spent on the ground, shifting from a relaxed, mendacity down place. Within the Hanna Somatic Yoga that Flynn teaches, college students calm down on the ground between postures, taking a minute to “discover the sensory suggestions that the motion generated,” she says. “There’s data coming from the pores and skin, muscle groups, joints, bones, and your peripheral nervous system as much as your sensory cortex, and your motor cortex makes use of it that will help you do no matter motion comes subsequent.”

3. It’s not centered on stretching

For some folks, yoga is principally synonymous with stretching. However in somatic yoga, “we don’t stretch,” Flynn says. Actually, as a substitute of specializing in the lengthening aspect of a motion (for instance, your again throughout cow pose), in somatic yoga, the main focus is on the contracting aspect of the motion (so the abdominals in cow pose).

The thought is that “by placing our consideration on the contracting aspect of the motion, we’re utilizing our nervous system to inhibit the lengthening aspect from contracting, and it will get to elongate with out being stretched,” Flynn says.

4. A lot of the apply occurs in your thoughts

Hanna Somatic Yoga teaches that college students ought to visualize doing a posture earlier than really doing it. “While you do a visualization, your premotor cortex sends what’s known as a motor plan to your physique, letting your muscle groups know what they will must do,” Flynn says. And if there’s a posture that you simply’re not in a position to do, or that simply isn’t in your apply that day? “Do it in your creativeness,” she says.

“Somatic yoga encourages shifting inside a spread that’s snug to your physique.” —Armen Menechyan, somatic yoga trainer

The advantages of somatic yoga that’ll persuade you to present it a shot

1. Reengaging dormant muscle groups

“Most of us have locations the place we stock sensory motor amnesia,” Flynn says. “You lose the sense of what a muscle looks like or what it does.” She says we would expertise this as a spread of movement that’s restricted and doesn’t appear to enhance regardless of how a lot we stretch it. Somatic yoga helps to reengage and reset these muscle groups, she says.

2. Managing tightness

Flynn says somatic yoga will help train your physique to assist launch muscle groups that it’s contracting habitually. “Your nervous system is working 24/7 to keep up these contractions, so if you consider your mind as a pc, you’ve got much less bandwidth accessible,” she says. “Sleep is affected, and for those who’re holding tight belly muscle groups, as many people are, digestion and respiratory are in all probability affected.”

3. Higher mind-body connection

“I feel the largest profit that my head and my coronary heart are aligned, and I’m not neglecting my physique,” Menechyan says. Flynn likens the thought of integrating your thoughts and physique to having a sixth sense. “You’re tuning in, you’re creating that sixth sense, which supplies you a way of how you might be in any second,” she says. “When you’ve got the power to internally monitor, you’ve got the power to self-regulate and self-heal.”

4. Shifting out of the sympathetic nervous system

Flynn says somatic yoga will help practitioners shift from the sympathetic nervous system, the place your physique is activated and careworn, to the parasympathetic nervous system, the place your physique is relaxed and conserving vitality. “You’re not going to stay there on a regular basis—life means there’s moments when that you must turn into activated,” she says. “However you gained’t keep activated—you’ll reset.”

5. Psychological and bodily aid

“If I’ve had a traumatic day, the category will deliver me again residence to my physique,” Menechyan says. “If there’s any kind of signs of hysteria or melancholy, it’s going to give me area round that to see extra clearly. On the subject of power ache and fatigue, it offers much less neural irritation and fewer physique irritation, so ache goes down a whole lot of occasions.” (Take a look at these somatic workout routines for melancholy.)

5 somatic yoga poses to attempt

Flynn emphasizes that the rules of somatic yoga could be utilized to any yoga pose and any model of yoga. Right here, she shares some somatic workout routines, plus the best way to method a number of widespread poses from a somatic yoga perspective.

1. Shoulder carry

1. Kneel on the ground along with your palms on the tops of your thighs, or sit able that is most snug for you.
2. Slowly draw your shoulders up, tilting your head again barely.
3. Then, much more slowly and with management, enable your shoulders to launch to gravity and your head to return ahead to impartial.
4. Repeat 3 times.

2. Mendacity twist

1. Lie in your again along with your knees bent and your toes flat on the ground, a cushty distance aside. (For those who expertise any decrease again ache, attempt widening your toes.)
2. Have your arms out to your sides in a T-shape, and gently roll your arms in order that one palm is going through the ground and the opposite is going through the ceiling.
3. Slowly roll your head so that you simply’re going through the palm that’s up, and shift your knees in direction of the palm going through the ground, leaving your toes grounded and solely going so far as is snug.
4. Rigorously, reverse the train.
5. Proceed slowly alternating backward and forward for about three cycles, then come again to a impartial place.

3. Tree pose (Vrikshasana)

1. Start standing along with your toes hip-width distance aside and your arms down by your sides.
2. Inhale to elongate your backbone, then exhale to shift your weight onto your left foot.
3. Place the only real of your proper foot in opposition to the within of your left ankle, then slide the only real of your proper foot up the within of your left leg so far as you may comfortably go.
4. Inhale and gently open your chest. As you exhale, press your foot and interior leg collectively to remain centered and powerful.
5. Convey your palms collectively in entrance of your coronary heart in prayer place. (You possibly can maintain onto one thing for extra stability if wanted.)
6. Keep right here for just a few rounds of breath, then repeat on the opposite aspect.
7. After working with both sides, come again right down to the ground to a rest place and do a physique scan, noticing how the posture has affected you.

4. Cobra pose (Bhujangasana)

1. Mendacity in your abdomen, first visualize doing cobra.
2. Then, bend your elbows so your arms are going through ahead by your aspect.
3. Prolong your backbone as you inhale, utilizing your again quite than your arms.
4. Depend to 3, then exhale as you slowly launch again to the ground.
5. Repeat 3 times.
6. Then, stack your arms underneath your brow and relaxation, respiratory deeply and noticing how you might really feel completely different.

5. Legs up

1. Lie in your again, and visualize doing the next posture earlier than doing it.
2. Bend your knees to plant your toes on the ground.
3. Utilizing the flexor muscle groups in your abs and hips, deliver your knees towards your chest.
4. Slowly, prolong your legs in direction of the ceiling, drawing your consideration to the entrance aspect of your physique.
5. Keep there for eight cycles of breath, counting “ohm one, ohm two, ohm three, ohm 4” on the inhale and the identical on the exhale.
6. Slowly and with management, bend your knees to plant your toes again on the bottom, then slide your legs out.
7. Take a minute to calm down and spot any sensory suggestions the posture generated.

Easy methods to know if somatic yoga is best for you

Everybody can profit from somatic yoga, Flynn says, however she recommends it particularly for anybody who feels caught of their yoga apply or has gotten injured making an attempt different types of yoga. “This can be a apply that you are able to do, and you might be in management,” she says. “You get to find out what’s the appropriate model for you.” She additionally suggests it for these involved in exploring their brain-body connection, and those that discover different types of yoga too regimented.

These affected by burnout or have bother concentrating or regulating their feelings can also wish to give somatic yoga a attempt, Menechyan says. “Or anybody who wants slowing down,” he says. “And I feel that’s lots of people proper now.”