Somatic Yoga: Uncover Advantages and Strategies

Yoga that’s really enjoyable and meditative may be surprisingly onerous to seek out today. (If you happen to’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 courses 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 tendencies that make your coronary heart race (like “snake yoga”—sure, you learn that proper) is somatic yoga, a follow that mixes somatic actions—the place you deal with how an train makes you are 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 completely different from the sorts of courses you’re in all probability extra acquainted with? We requested two veteran academics to clarify, and to share the advantages of this distinctive follow.

Okay, severely, what’s somatic yoga?

Somatic yoga courses sometimes embody yoga poses you already know, plus somatic workout routines, that are sometimes easy, small actions aimed toward selling extra consciousness throughout 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 practicing holding our attention on what we’re doing throughout the entire practice,” says Lisa Tatham Flynn, a New York Metropolis-based trainer licensed in Hanna Somatic Schooling and trauma-informed yoga remedy. “It’s a first-person, internal, lived-experience practice,” not like in another sorts of yoga, the place it’s possible you’ll be targeted in your physique from the skin in.

Not all somatic yoga courses look precisely the identical, and completely different academics could have completely different approaches (some could incorporate parts of yoga remedy, as an illustration, or Feldenkrais Technique). However listed below are some ways in which a somatic yoga class would possibly feel and look completely different from different types of yoga.

1. It’s about how you are 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 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 trainer specializing in yoga remedy and somatic practices and founding father of Pür Pleasure.

“There’s no right way that a posture needs to 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 in all probability spend numerous time on the ground

The primary thirty to forty minutes of Menechyan’s courses are sometimes spent on the ground, shifting from a relaxed, mendacity down place. Within the Hanna Somatic Yoga that Flynn teaches, college students loosen up on the ground between postures, taking a minute to “notice the sensory feedback that the movement generated,” she says. “There’s information coming from the skin, muscles, joints, bones, and your peripheral nervous system up to your sensory cortex, and your motor cortex uses it to help you do whatever movement comes next.”

3. It’s not targeted on stretching

For some folks, yoga is principally synonymous with stretching. However in somatic yoga, “we don’t stretch,” Flynn says. The truth is, as an alternative 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 putting our attention on the contracting side of the movement, we’re using our nervous system to inhibit the lengthening side from contracting, and it gets to lengthen without 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. “When you do a visualization, your premotor cortex sends what’s called a motor plan to your body, letting your muscles know what they’re going to need to do,” Flynn says. And if there’s a posture that you just’re not capable of do, or that simply isn’t in your follow that day? “Do it in your imagination,” she says.

“Somatic yoga encourages moving within a range that’s comfortable for your body.” —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 places where we carry sensory motor amnesia,” Flynn says. “You lose the sense of what a muscle feels like or what it does.” She says we’d expertise this as a variety of movement that’s restricted and doesn’t appear to enhance irrespective 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 can assist educate your physique to assist launch muscle groups that it’s contracting habitually. “Your nervous system is working 24/7 to maintain those contractions, so if you think about your brain as a computer, you have less bandwidth available,” she says. “Sleep is affected, and if you’re holding tight abdominal muscles, as many of us are, digestion and breathing are probably affected.”

3. Higher mind-body connection

“I think the biggest benefit that my head and my heart are aligned, and I’m not neglecting my body,” Menechyan says. Flynn likens the concept of integrating your thoughts and physique to having a sixth sense. “You’re tuning in, you’re developing that sixth sense, which gives you a sense of how you are in any moment,” she says. “When you have the ability to internally monitor, you have the ability 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 burdened, to the parasympathetic nervous system, the place your physique is relaxed and conserving power. “You’re not going to remain there all the time—life means there’s moments when you need to become activated,” she says. “But you won’t stay activated—you’ll reset.”

5. Psychological and bodily reduction

“If I’ve had a stressful day, the class will bring me back home to my body,” Menechyan says. “If there’s any sort of symptoms of anxiety or depression, it’ll give me space around that to see more clearly. When it comes to chronic pain and fatigue, it provides less neural inflammation and less body inflammation, so pain goes down a lot of times.” (Try these somatic workout routines for melancholy.)

5 somatic yoga poses to attempt

Flynn emphasizes that the rules of somatic yoga may be utilized to any yoga pose and any model of yoga. Right here, she shares some somatic workout routines, plus learn how 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 come back ahead to impartial.
4. Repeat 3 times.

2. Mendacity twist

1. Lie in your again along with your knees bent and your ft flat on the ground, a snug distance aside. (If you happen to expertise any decrease again ache, attempt 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 just’re going through the palm that’s up, and shift your knees in the 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 backward and forward 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 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 possibly can comfortably go.
4. Inhale and gently open your chest. As you exhale, press your foot and inside leg collectively to remain centered and robust.
5. Deliver your palms collectively in entrance of your coronary heart in prayer place. (You’ll be able to 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 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 palms are going through ahead by your aspect.
3. Lengthen your backbone as you inhale, utilizing your again reasonably than your arms.
4. Rely to a few, then exhale as you slowly launch again to the ground.
5. Repeat 3 times.
6. Then, stack your palms underneath your brow and relaxation, respiration deeply and noticing how it’s possible you’ll 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 ft on the ground.
3. Utilizing the flexor muscle groups in your abs and hips, convey your knees towards your chest.
4. Slowly, prolong your legs in the 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 four” 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 loosen up and spot 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 follow or has gotten injured attempting different types of yoga. “This is a practice that you can do, and you are in control,” she says. “You get to determine what’s the right version for you.” She additionally suggests it for these focused on 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 attempt, Menechyan says. “Or anyone who needs slowing down,” he says. “And I think that’s a lot of people right now.”