Somatic Yoga: Uncover Advantages and Strategies

Yoga that’s really stress-free and meditative might be surprisingly arduous to seek out as of late. (Should you’ve ever discovered your self doing biceps curls in a “yoga” class, 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 deal with how an train makes you are feeling by transferring your physique as gently and compassionately as potential—and yoga postures and that emphasizes the mind-body connection.

However what, precisely, is somatic yoga, and what makes it so totally different from the sorts of lessons you’re most likely extra acquainted with? We requested two veteran academics to clarify, and to share the advantages of this distinctive apply.

Associated Tales

Okay, significantly, what’s somatic yoga?

Somatic yoga lessons sometimes embody yoga poses you already know, plus somatic workouts, 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 practising holding our consideration on what we’re doing all through your complete apply,” says Lisa Tatham Flynn, a New York Metropolis-based instructor licensed in Hanna Somatic Schooling and trauma-informed yoga remedy. “It’s a first-person, inside, lived-experience apply,” in contrast to in another kinds of yoga, the place you might be centered in your physique from the surface in.

Not all somatic yoga lessons look precisely the identical, and totally different academics might have totally different approaches (some might incorporate components of yoga remedy, for example, or Feldenkrais Technique). However listed here are some ways in which a somatic yoga class may appear and feel totally different from different types of yoga.

1. It’s about how you are feeling, not reaching a posture

In contrast to in different types of yoga, the place the main focus could also be on reaching a posture or a motion with the proper 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 instructor specializing in yoga remedy and somatic practices and founding father of Pür Pleasure.

“There’s no proper approach {that a} posture must look,” Menechyan says. As an alternative, somatic yoga encourages transferring inside a spread that’s comfy on your physique, and approaching the motion with a way of playfulness and exploration.

2. You’ll most likely spend plenty of time on the ground

The primary thirty to forty minutes of Menechyan’s lessons are sometimes spent on the ground, transferring 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, muscular tissues, 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 mainly synonymous with stretching. However in somatic yoga, “we don’t stretch,” Flynn says. In truth, 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 concept 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. “Whenever you do a visualization, your premotor cortex sends what’s referred to as a motor plan to your physique, letting your muscular tissues know what they’ll 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 transferring inside a spread that’s comfy on your physique.” —Armen Menechyan, somatic yoga instructor

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

1. Reengaging dormant muscular tissues

“Most of us have locations the place we feature 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 muscular tissues, she says.

2. Managing tightness

Flynn says somatic yoga will help educate your physique to assist launch muscular tissues 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 out there,” she says. “Sleep is affected, and when you’re holding tight stomach muscular tissues, as many people are, digestion and respiratory are most likely affected.”

3. Higher mind-body connection

“I believe the largest profit that my head and my coronary heart are aligned, and I’m not neglecting my physique,” Menechyan says. Flynn likens the concept of integrating your thoughts and physique to having a sixth sense. “You’re tuning in, you’re growing 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 burdened, 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 it’s worthwhile to grow to be activated,” she says. “However you received’t keep activated—you’ll reset.”

5. Psychological and bodily reduction

“If I’ve had a irritating day, the category will carry me again house to my physique,” Menechyan says. “If there’s any form of signs of tension or despair, it’s going to give me house round that to see extra clearly. In the case of power ache and fatigue, it offers much less neural irritation and fewer physique irritation, so ache goes down lots of instances.” (Try these somatic workouts for despair.)

5 somatic yoga poses to strive

Flynn emphasizes that the rules of somatic yoga might be utilized to any yoga pose and any type of yoga. Right here, she shares some somatic workouts, plus method a number of widespread poses from a somatic yoga perspective.

1. Shoulder carry

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

2. Mendacity twist

1. Lie in your again together with your knees bent and your toes flat on the ground, a snug distance aside. (Should you expertise any decrease again ache, strive 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 comfy.
4. Fastidiously, 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 together 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 of your proper foot in opposition to the within of your left ankle, then slide the only 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 internal leg collectively to remain centered and powerful.
5. Carry your palms collectively in entrance of your coronary heart in prayer place. (You may 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 either side, come again right down to the ground to a leisure 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 fingers are going through ahead by your aspect.
3. Prolong your backbone as you inhale, utilizing your again reasonably than your arms.
4. Depend to a few, then exhale as you slowly launch again to the ground.
5. Repeat 3 times.
6. Then, stack your fingers below your brow and relaxation, respiratory deeply and noticing how you might really feel totally 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 muscular tissues in your abs and hips, carry 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 see any sensory suggestions the posture generated.

The right way 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 taken with exploring their brain-body connection, and people who discover different types of yoga too regimented.

These affected by burnout or have hassle concentrating or regulating their feelings may additionally wish to give somatic yoga a strive, Menechyan says. “Or anybody who wants slowing down,” he says. “And I believe that’s lots of people proper now.”