Breathing for Restorative Yoga
Restorative Yoga is a style of yoga that focuses on relaxation with a deep emphasis on the breath. In a fast paced world meditative and relaxation based “exercises” are often overlooked for more physical activities but when you consider the benefits you might think twice about finding the time to incorporate Restorative Yoga into your practice.
The most obvious benefits are that it relaxes the body, and quiets the mind as any form of meditation will do. However, it also soothes the nervous system, boosts your immune system, enhances flexibility, improves mood, and improves capacity for healing and recovery.
The soothing of the nervous system in restorative yoga is directly related to the emphases on breath. The nervous system is responsible for our “fight or flight response” by tuning in to your breathing elongating your inhales and exhales you can lower your resting heart which helps to relax your nervous system.
Using the Expand-A-Lung to help with this type of breathing as the resistance causes you to elongate your inhales and exhales naturally. The Expand-A-Lung can be used with any seated upright postures, but should not be used when laying down in supine or prone positions. It should also not be used when practicing forward folds.
“Our immune system functions optimally when we have healthy levels of stress. When we are feeling run down and drained it’s often a result of stress dictating our behavior, but we can take control of the situation.
Yoga helps lower stress hormones that compromise the immune system, while also conditioning the lungs and respiratory tract, stimulating the lymphatic system to oust toxins from the body, and bringing oxygenated blood to the various organs to ensure their optimal function. In other words, ‘do yoga, feel better.’”-Breathe Yoga Center.
Oxygenating our blood and muscles is key to a healthy immune system and improving this is as simple as taking some time for conscious breathing. Restorative Yoga is a great way to tap into your breath. As mentioned previously it can be beneficial to turn your practice up a notch by adding a breathing resistance exerciser like Expand-A-Lung. Expand-A-Lung increases your lung capacity which allows you to more efficiently deliver oxygen to your blood stream and muscles. If you’re already investing the time in a practice that improves your immune system you might as well maximize the benefits.
Improving flexibility is a benefit of all yoga practices. However, in Restorative you hold each asana much longer than you would in most sales (typically 3-5 minutes for each asana) this allows your muscles to relax and gives a deeper stretch.
Breathing deeply as you hold the posture relaxes the muscle tissue and connective tissue which leads to increased flexibility and mobility.
The practice of Restorative Yoga balances the mind and body which improves our mood. I’ve yet to meet someone that leaves the mat still grumpy after a juicy practice and a 5 minute savasana. It’s basically impossible.
Last but certainly not least “yoga has healed the physical bodies of many and also the lives of many. The ancient techniques bring balance to the hectic pace of our lives and the physical demands we put on our bodies. It helped me recover from injuries that I thought would be debilitating, and as the practice took root in my life it helped me become more patient with myself and others.
I believe in the transformational power of yoga, and restorative yoga is deeply nourishing when I need it most.”-Breathe Yoga Center.
The postures in Restorative Yoga are relatively simple and can be modified so that anyone can practice this style of Yoga. The key is to tap in to your breath to get all the benefits of this beautiful practice. There are many styles of breathing (or pranayama) that can be used for this practice but as long as you breathe easy, deeply, and with intention you will be greatly impacted.
