Rest your body and mind with surprisingly powerful restorative yoga

ABOUT 10 YEARS AGO, Todd Greenwood found himself sobbing quietly in a yoga class.

He was taking a slow-paced Yin class, where he went to unwind. At the time, he also was going through a divorce.

“I would relax so much that I would feel all these emotions about my divorce,” he says. “It was a healing practice in a lot of different ways; it was part of my recovery.”

A decade later, Greenwood still goes to Yin class once a week to get a mental break from his fast-paced job as a software engineer. Though he takes yoga classes six days a week, sometimes he doesn’t want physical intensity, so he chooses Yin. He’s never had a competitive urge during a Yin practice. “It’s an unwinding of the mind somehow,” he says.

Going to the studio gets him out of the house and away from work, to take several hours for himself. “This is one of the significant things I do that keeps my life balanced,” he says.

GREENWOOD IS ONE of many people choosing to restore physically and mentally through yoga classes designed to help you rest. Yoga is a well-loved option for movement and mindfulness, with 14% of people in the United States practicing in 2017. Though yoga can be associated with intense, sweaty practices, the slower-paced, restful practices have gained more attention in recent years as the cost of a fast-paced lifestyle and recovery from the pandemic become evident.

Slower-paced classes have become mainstays at yoga studios as people seek another way to put a pause on overbusy lives. The practices include restorative yoga, a grounding class that relies on props for full relaxation; Yin Yoga, which uses seated and lying postures along with longer holds to stretch connective tissue; Yoga Nidra, a guided rest practice; and sound baths, a meditative practice accompanied by the soothing vibrations of singing bowls or other instruments.

What is behind the rise in these practices? First, these classes are generally physically available to anyone, no matter your conditioning. Even if you’ve never taken a yoga class before, or have physical limitations, these classes are the easiest way to do yoga.

Another reason could be the many ways in which we are more stressed and exhausted than ever. The pandemic and lockdowns gave us a glimpse of a quieter life, with all activities canceled and more time at home; the pace of life slowed so much for many that for a brief moment, it felt like a more innocent time.

In the past year, with restrictions fully lifted and all activities back in person, people refilled calendars already brimming over, adding back time-consuming activities such as commuting to and from the office again, driving kids to activities or meeting someone in person for dinner.

And do not forget the smartphone that makes your life both more convenient and far more hectic, with nonstop news and notifications. Since last year, you might feel as if your daily life has been tossed onto a hydroplane that’s racing you forward, no matter whether you wanted to slow down or speed up.

AS THE PACE of life has felt more intense, and awareness has grown about the true cost of a hustle/work hard culture, the call for slower practices of rest has become more mainstream. Nationally known yoga teacher Tracee Stanley is one of the leaders of the movement, and her book, “Radiant Rest,” has been one of the leading proponents about the surprising power of rest and Yoga Nidra in your daily life. Rest is the pathway to thrive and experience clarity and freedom, Stanley posits in her work.

Deciding to rest can feel counterintuitive, says yoga teacher Tracy Hodgeman of South Park, who has taught Yoga Nidra for more than a decade. The capitalist system we live in teaches us that we have to rush around, work as much as possible and feel stressed out while doing it, she says, and that is unhealthy and unfriendly.

“I want to slow down, and a lot of people I practice with want to slow down,” she says.

But it takes effort to carve out time to do a restorative yoga class, and for some people, it might feel like it is too time-consuming or too much time away from other types of activities.

Hodgeman says that resting actually makes her more effective.

“When I keep my practice of stillness up to speed, if you will, I have so much more energy to do things I want to do,” she says. “It actually makes us more productive and clear and at ease.”

PRANIFY YOGA STUDIO in Green Lake was quiet before a Thursday evening Yin Yoga class. Students grabbed yoga blocks on their way into class, picked their way through the crowd to get a spot on the floor and rolled out their yoga mats so they were facing away from a mirror that covered one wall.

Soon, the room was full.

Teacher Tami Hafzalla guided the class into an opening supported fish pose, with a block placed underneath the upper back and shoulders to open up the chest.

I was there for my first Yin Yoga class in years. As soon as Hafzalla moved us into the first opening pose, I could feel myself immediately relax, soften and breathe, my arms draped on the floor and my hips and legs heavy.

She took us through a series of gentle poses, reminding us that we would be holding poses for a few minutes at a time, and to keep our focus on breathing during the holds.

With dim lighting, soft music and Hafzalla’s clear instructions, I could feel the tension in my shoulders and neck start to ease. As she took us through grounding poses such as child’s pose, forehead on the ground, I closed my eyes and startled awake when she had us move to a new one.

My mind finally felt quiet during class instead of darting from topic to topic. I loved lying on my belly during half frog. I focused on the interesting tightness in my spine during a seated forward fold.

By the end of class, I felt as if I had explored every pocket of tension in my body. More important, I felt as if I had unwound some of the tension in my mind. I moved slowly to leave the studio.

KRISTIN GLOVER, a regular at Hafzalla’s Yin class, first took yoga to support recovery from an eating disorder. It helped her to get into her body, feel grounded and manage her stress.

Then, she took her first Yin class.

“It was so relaxing, it felt like time stood still,” she says.

When she first started taking Yin classes six years ago, it felt as if there weren’t that many people. The classes now seem to be some of the more popular ones, she says. She loves hearing the collective sighs of people settling in at the start of class.

She takes Yin or restorative at least once a week. In faster yoga classes, her mind still sometimes can go into thinking, she says. In the slower class, she is more curious about what’s happening in her body.

“I definitely feel like it’s a necessary thing now,” she says. “I notice a difference if I miss one of my regular classes.”

The real challenge for most people these days is consistently feeling stress, and they aren’t getting much-needed breaks from the intensity of the stress, says Hafzalla, who trains Yin Yoga teachers. There was a time when the stress hormone cortisol, for example, was useful when you had to escape from a predator. Your body helped you with fight or flight, then would relax again and carry on with life.

Now, if there’s a difficult work situation or a relationship challenge, that same stress hormone gets released and stays in your system.

“Our body isn’t able to recalibrate, because the stress hormone keeps getting provoked,” she says.

Add to that a society where the expectation is to do more, succeed and have more, she says, and it also affects sleep, another time for your body to rest.

The call for more rest might be more urgent than we care to admit. A constant influx of stress hormones can cause illnesses and other health problems, Hafzalla says. And some studies show that slower yoga practices, with their focus on movement and breath, can have a profound impact on your health.

One study funded by the National Institutes of Health showed that restorative yoga might help with weight loss, specifically subcutaneous fat. The study compared one group that stretched with another that did restorative yoga; both groups lost weight, while the one that did restorative yoga lost more, and maintained the reduction for months afterward.

Another study in 2018 revealed that after just five weeks of Yin Yoga, there was a decrease in sleep problems and anxiety for adults, and a decrease in a health marker for diseases that cause premature death.

Learning to rest also trains your body how to access a calmer state more quickly.

Hafzalla says she aims to teach her students to bring what they learn into their daily lives, whether it’s a restorative pose before bed or deep breathing in difficult situations.

“We’re in modern life; nobody is running to the Himalayas and living in a cave,” she says. “We’re in this world; it’s very demanding. How do we respond rather than react?” 

ON SUNDAYS, KATIE JACKSON gets online with the Ballard Health Club to take Hodgeman’s Yoga Wind Down class, which includes Yoga Nidra.

On those nights, Jackson, who works in technology, says she can be thinking about the week, or feeling apprehensive about what’s ahead. The class helps her relax and get a good night of sleep before her workweek begins.

“It enables me to gift myself with space to be in my body,” she says. “It’s a way of grounding into form, feeling the support of the Earth and relaxing into that space.”

In Yoga Nidra, you set yourself up in a comfortable pose on your back. The teacher talks you through the class, walking you through the sensations in your body so you move into deep relaxation and an in-between space that’s not quite awake or asleep.

But it’s more than taking a nap, Jackson says. “If you can slow down, be present and get yourself to a Nidra class, I guarantee the world is going to look a lot friendlier on the other side.”

Before she started teaching Yoga Nidra, Hodgeman already was starting to slow down her yoga practice. She started out teaching Ashtanga, a vigorous style of practice known for its intensity. When she made herself go to a slower style of practice, it felt like she was feeding a part of her that was starving.

“It’s like I was thirsty and didn’t know it, then started to drink water and was like, ‘Oh, God; this is what my body needs,’ ” she says.

She eventually learned to teach Yoga Nidra after experiencing it with her own teachers. “People showed up in droves,” she says. “The floor was covered in bodies; everyone loved it.”

Hodgeman kept reading about the benefits to the nervous and immune systems, and then also saw the results with her students, so she continued to teach it.

It’s a simple practice with profound results. It also gives people access to another important lesson — giving yourself permission to rest, Hodgeman says. Nidra reminds her that life is more than hustling and getting things done. Slowing down is a way to find out what she cares about, and what to do next.

Postpandemic, people are more aware of how fragile and temporary life is than they once were, she says. Her students are looking more deeply at the question “How do I take care of myself?”

Once you slow down, you can start to tap into your instinct and your creativity, she says. Slowing down is a way to discover what matters. “I don’t know why it took us so long to get here.”