RESTORATIVE YOGA
Just this week I found out about restorative yoga. This new style of yoga doesn’t involve moving or stretching—it’s more like active relaxation. Once you’re in a pose, you simply hold it for 5 or more minutes. The idea is to focus on your breath in a mindful way; as your body relaxes into the pose your breathing and heart rate slow, you become calmer and you feel less stress (and who doesn’t need reduced stress in this time of Covid?)
Rather than going through 20+ poses at a normal hour-long yoga class, it’s recommended you practice restorative yoga for just 20 minutes but every day. Some of the suggested poses are familiar, such as child’s pose, legs-up-the-wall pose and corpse pose, but there are also a couple of new poses (at least to me) including mountain brook pose and fish pose. To help in this process, along with your yoga mat, you use props such as blocks, folded towels or blankets.
Simple Poses
Today I tried it out. And it “works.” I started with child’s pose, then legs-up-the- wall pose, *mountain brook and finished off with corpse pose. I spent about 5 minutes in each pose. They were all gentle on my body and I was able to relax, release tension in my muscles, get into a semi-meditative state and after 20 minutes I felt I had more vigor and experienced a sense of well being.
*Mountain brook is a gentle back bend that opens up your chest. You lie on your back on top of your yoga mat: place a bolster or rolled up blanket under your knees so that you can drape your legs over it; place your shoulder blades on top of another folded blanket; and place a third folded blanket on top of your mat to support your neck; then stretch out your arms. (Watch a YouTube demo to see its simplicity.)
Tomorrow I’ll watch fish pose on YouTube and try it out.
I have to say I love attending a yoga class a couple of times a week, but with the pandemic my gym has closed for months and nobody knows when it reopens. So, in the meantime, I’ll see if I can get in a restorative yoga session every day.
Try it out yourself. It just might become part of your regular routine!