Somatic Yoga: Discover Benefits and Techniques

Yoga that’s really enjoyable and meditative could be surprisingly laborious to search out today. (When you’ve ever discovered your self doing biceps curls in a “yoga” class, you realize what I’m speaking about.) And whereas there’s a spot for yoga lessons that really feel extra like interval exercises, generally you want a follow 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 follow that mixes somatic movements—the place you concentrate on how an train makes you’re feeling by shifting your physique as gently and compassionately as doable—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 aware of? We requested two veteran lecturers to clarify, and to share the advantages of this distinctive follow.

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Okay, critically, 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 throughout the physique.

However in somatic yoga, it’s typically 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 the whole follow,” says Lisa Tatham Flynn, a New York Metropolis-based instructor licensed in Hanna Somatic Education and trauma-informed yoga therapy. “It’s a first-person, inside, lived-experience follow,” not like in another kinds of yoga, the place it’s possible you’ll be centered in your physique from the surface in.

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

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

In contrast to in different types of yoga, the place the main target could also be on reaching a posture or a motion with the proper type 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 Joy.

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

2. You’ll most likely spend numerous 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 chill out 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 individuals, yoga is mainly synonymous with stretching. However in somatic yoga, “we don’t stretch,” Flynn says. Actually, as a substitute of specializing in the lengthening facet of a motion (for instance, your again throughout cow pose), in somatic yoga, the main target is on the contracting facet of the motion (so the abdominals in cow pose).

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

4. A lot of the follow occurs in your thoughts

Hanna Somatic Yoga teaches that college students ought to visualize doing a posture earlier than truly 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 will have to do,” Flynn says. And if there’s a posture that you simply’re not capable of do, or that simply isn’t in your follow that day? “Do it in your creativeness,” she says.

“Somatic yoga encourages shifting inside a variety that’s snug in your physique.” —Armen Menechyan, somatic yoga instructor

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

1. Reengaging dormant muscular tissues

“Most of us have locations the place we supply sensory motor amnesia,” Flynn says. “You lose the sense of what a muscle seems like or what it does.” She says we would expertise this as a variety 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 can assist 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 concentrate on your mind as a pc, you’ve got much less bandwidth obtainable,” she says. “Sleep is affected, and when you’re holding tight belly muscular tissues, as many people are, digestion and respiration are most likely 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 concept of integrating your thoughts and physique to having a sixth sense. “You’re tuning in, you’re growing that sixth sense, which provides you a way of how you’re in any second,” she says. “When you’ve got the flexibility to internally monitor, you’ve got the flexibility to self-regulate and self-heal.”

4. Shifting out of the sympathetic nervous system

Flynn says somatic yoga can assist 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 power. “You’re not going to stay there on a regular basis—life means there’s moments when you must turn out to be activated,” she says. “However you gained’t keep activated—you’ll reset.”

5. Psychological and bodily aid

“If I’ve had a tense day, the category will convey me again residence to my physique,” Menechyan says. “If there’s any form of signs of tension or melancholy, it will give me area round that to see extra clearly. In terms of persistent ache and fatigue, it supplies much less neural irritation and fewer physique irritation, so ache goes down plenty of instances.” (Take a look at these somatic exercises for depression.)

5 somatic yoga poses to strive

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 strategy a number of widespread poses from a somatic yoga perspective.

1. Shoulder elevate

1. Kneel on the ground along with your palms on the tops of your thighs, or sit ready 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 come back ahead to impartial.
4. Repeat thrice.

2. Mendacity twist

1. Lie in your again along with your knees bent and your ft flat on the ground, a snug distance aside. (When you expertise any decrease again ache, strive widening your ft.)
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 ft grounded and solely going so far as is snug.
4. Rigorously, reverse the train.
5. Proceed slowly alternating back and forth for about three cycles, then come again to a impartial place.

3. Tree pose (Vrikshasana)

1. Start standing along with your ft 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 possibly can comfortably go.
4. Inhale and gently open your chest. As you exhale, press your foot and interior leg collectively to remain centered and robust.
5. Convey 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 a couple of rounds of breath, then repeat on the opposite facet.
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 facet.
3. Lengthen your backbone as you inhale, utilizing your again reasonably than your arms.
4. Depend to 3, then exhale as you slowly launch again to the ground.
5. Repeat thrice.
6. Then, stack your fingers below your brow and relaxation, respiration deeply and noticing how it’s possible you’ll 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 ft on the ground.
3. Utilizing the flexor muscular tissues in your abs and hips, convey your knees towards your chest.
4. Slowly, lengthen your legs in direction of the ceiling, drawing your consideration to the entrance facet 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 ft again on the bottom, then slide your legs out.
7. Take a minute to chill out and spot any sensory suggestions the posture generated.

How you can 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 follow or has gotten injured attempting different types of yoga. “It is a follow that you are able to do, and you’re in management,” she says. “You get to find out what’s the proper model for you.” She additionally suggests it for these thinking about exploring their brain-body connection, and people who discover different types of yoga too regimented.

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