Sarah Slattery Explains Benefits of Yin and Restorative Yoga

This is the second of a two part series blogpost written by Sarah Slattery, a recent Clayton Yoga Teacher Training graduate. Sarah describes how yoga helps us to slow down and even greater benefits to yoga. In the Clayton Yoga Teacher Training course, Sarah learned how to practice and teach both Restorative style of Yoga and Yin as well. Whether you wish to deepen your own spirituality or bring yoga into your workplace, Clayton Yoga has tools just right for you!  Enjoy reading more about yoga training and the results you may find in this blogpost.  If you have any questions or would like to join a Clayton Yoga Teacher Training, please contact us at 314-630-1677.

Restorative Yoga

Restorative or Yin yoga is an important part of yoga because it helps balance out the Yang yoga (which is the Ashtanga or Vinyasa flow). Restorative yoga is in fact better than sleep for releasing tense muscles, relieving joint aches, and transitioning the mind and body quickly from stress to calm. It also teaches conscious control of relaxation. Sleep is essential for completing the job of full recovery of the nervous system, sorting out memories and emotions, and literally finding meaning in our lives.

Yin Yoga

In addition to an immediate calming effect, some of Roger Cole’s regular restorative practitioners also notice improved powers of attention and concentration. But the most powerful health benefits of yoga may be harder to measure. Yin Yoga helps massage the connective tissue while holding the poses for a longer period of time. That is why it is important to balance out your practice with Yin and Yang.

My target audience is my patients that I will see as a chiropractor. I would like to have motivated people that are willing to make a change in their lives. I have started to teach yoga open to all patients at the clinic I currently work in, and the patients have had nothing but great experiences from yoga and chiropractic.

Yoga and Chiropractic Care

I believe that the two go hand in hand, and I am excited for what the future holds with that. The only problem I have seen is that some people are not motivated to come do the yoga part of the practice because they want a “quick fix”, and that is just not possible for chronic pain patients.

The bottom line is that in this day and age we live a sedentary life style, and everyone needs more movement in their lives. Adjusting people will help temporarily, but if people are not willing to move to strengthen the muscles that are weak and stretch the muscles that are tight then the adjustments will not last for long. Yoga will add value to patients lives by just getting them to move and helping them with their breath. Also, yoga brings a sense of relaxation to the mind and body, and that is vital to the patients that I am seeing because most of them are chronically stressed.

Yoga has helped me become more of a spiritual person overall. That was my major setback starting from 18-24 years of age. I was raised in the Catholic church, but I always had several questions that were never answered. So, I stopped going to church, and I basically quit believing in God for a while. I still do not understand everything, but I have come to a realization that maybe I am not suppose to know everything and that is OKAY. Yoga has helped me find spirituality through meditation and breathing. I am not sure what “higher power” is out there, but I know that there is something else that has to be out there.

Would you like to get on the path of feeling better each day? Interested in more information about our upcoming Clayton Yoga Teacher Training Courses? Would you like to deepen your practice, and try out a Thai Yoga Massage or private yoga class with Clayton Yoga. If so, please email us at claytonyogastudio@gmail.com. Namaste!