If you’re constantly busy, exhausted and stressed, discover why you need yoga’s relaxation practices to help you re-energise, think more creatively and feel less time pressured.

Because our culture emphasises productivity, we don't value rest and relaxation. We push through, exhausted, ignoring body signals, to keep up with endless responsibilities, whether it’s meeting urgent deadlines or looking after family in what feels like a time pressured world.

Like the muscles in your body, your mind becomes both fatigued and agitated with all this ongoing effort,  (and the stimulus of an ‘always on culture’ exacerbates this). We aren't designed to be endlessly productive: during periods of rest, play and relaxation, the brain is able to consolidate memories, crystallise learning, and work on problem-solving.

After sleep, rest is the most underused, chemical-free, safe and effective alternative therapy available to us.

So why bother to rest if we sleep?

Rest is different to sleep because when we’re in the dreaming stages (REM) sleep, our brain waves are faster than in waking states and there may be increased muscular tension.

Rest and Sleep are different but both are necessary for our health.

In deep rest, our brain waves slow down as in the phases of deep sleep, but we’re aware and awake, as if ‘the mind watches passively while the body sleeps’.  There is often a blissful feeling of drifting in the liminal zone between wakefulness and dozing.

‘In relaxation there is no body movement, no effort and the brain is quiet’. (Lasater, Relax & Renew, 2011). Brain waves are long and slow, heart and breathing rate slow down and blood pressure lowers, and our nervous systems are able to shift into the parasympathetic (rest & digest) mode, the opposite of the stress response.

So is stress bad or good?

Stress is essential because it’s what gets us up in the morning, alert and active to get our act together and it’s the physiological response to what’s perceived as life threatening.  Our modern day threats are less about escaping wild animals  (which resolved quickly) and more about frequent lower level threats like job insecurity, political and environmental disasters or chronically ill family members.

When you slow down and rest, you’re able to release the stress from your busy life, instead of being ‘stuck’ in your sympathetic nervous system (fight-flight) and you’re able to enter a parasympathetic state (rest-digest), allowing your mind and body to fully relax and recharge.

In deep relaxation practices, there’s a feeling of letting go of the thoughts that make us tense: we lose sense of time, in some ways similar to when we’re absorbed doing something we enjoy like reading or making something for pleasure, not because we have to sell it or share it.

So how do Restorative Yoga and Yoga Nidra make us relax so deeply?

Restorative yoga is all about using plenty of props to place your body in positions of comfort and ease so that relaxation takes place without trying. There are quite a few restorative positions or poses but all stimulate the parasympathetic state. The positions of the body and most importantly the head and how it’s relative to the heart, are all are specific.   It relies on quietness, a still body, darkness (eye covering), warmth (blankets) and the necessary time to drop into deeper layers of the relaxation reponse.

Yoga nidra isn't totally quiet because of the teacher’s voice guiding you in the practice but your body is still (mostly lying down) and the qualities of darkness, warmth and time are needed to shift your nervous system towards the parasympathetic state. The soothing guidance includes a body scan and breath awareness taking you deeper into relaxed states. 

In both practices, no effort is needed, it’s about doing nothing at all, its about rediscovering the art of doing nothing and see how effortless things become and when you take time to rest and recharge, you’ll have more energy for the people and activities you love the most!