Perhaps you’ve heard the claims from your neighbor, “yoga cured my insomnia.” Or maybe your co-worker boasts, “I practice three times a week and my back pain is gone.” It’s possible that your 11-year-old daughter squeals with delight because she can now touch her toes and no longer gets “homework headaches.”
With 16 million Americans practicing yoga, the anecdotal evidence is exponentially favorable to the curative benefits of yoga, such as relaxation and stress relief. But skeptical and scientific minds still want to know, is yoga really a remedy?
I began practicing yoga at age 11, and can say from my personal experience that I rarely get sick, I’ve never broken a bone and I sleep like a baby 97 percent of the time. In a purely unscientific poll of myself, yoga has been and continues to be a remedy for my aches and pains and a preventative from getting them in the first place!
I also have hundreds of stories I could share with you from students who work with me in my specialized yoga therapy format, Yoga Tune Up®. A range of students from 17-77 come to me with chronic conditions like MS, scoliosis, breast and chest surgeries, metal implants in their tissues, migraines, car accidents, obesity and more.
The good news is that there are studies that confirm the benefits of yoga for many health conditions. We can rejoice that yoga’s curative powers are not just a myth! Yoga helps and it heals.
Let’s take a closer look this week at insomnia:
Your neighbor’s insomnia
Insomnia is a plague. When we cannot sleep well, our stress levels skyrocket and this can lead to accidents, greater fatigue and weight gain. When your neighbor tosses and turns all night, her mind is not letting her body enter into the healing phases of deep sleep.
Perhaps your neighbor tried out a Yin Yoga class at the local YWCA. Her class promised to help reduce stress and enhance her ability to sleep.
So how did it work its magic? Yoga enhances a body’s ability to sleep by consistently inducing the relaxation response in the body’s tissues. Yin Yoga especially promotes a very relaxing environment by holding static or still stretches for long periods of time (two to 20 minutes), with the body often supported by bolsters, blankets and other props. These stretches are done with the help of gravity’s pull on the body. She is instructed to breathe deeply and rhythmically. The result is that the long-held stretches, combined with the breathing, turn her “fight or flight” response off and her “rest and digest” response on. Ultimately, this resets the resting tone in her muscles and her mind is reconditioned to be more mellow.
On Friday I’ll post about that classic insomnia-busting pose savasana, as well as a video on Monday with special breathing techniques to help your body fully downregulate.
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[reprinted with permission from Gaiam Life.]
I believe yoga has had a powerful positive influence on my life, but I do think it helps for people to understand why they approach yoga in the first place? Are they interested in an active movement to help tone & encourage flexibility? then try an active practice. But if on the other hand they are interested in a gentle, more meditative practice then Yin or Restorative Yoga would be more beneficial. People attending active class when they are more interested in learning to quiten thier sympathetic nervous system, would more likely turn a student off. It is also helpful to understand the different between a Yin class & a Restorative class – both are passive practice – mostly done on the floor, but Yin is designed to “stress” & challenge the facia & connective tissue – is working from the belief the body is health & no injury. Restorativeyoga on the other hand, is designed not to stress or challenge the body – to use props to support the body in every way so there is no muscular effort, when the body is gently supported without effort or strain, then the parasympathetic nervous system is stimulated, allowing deep release of tension, stress & anxiety. Neither active nor passive practise is better than the other, but like everything in life, we need a healthily balance of both.
Hi Jill,
Yes yoga can help one to cope with insomnia because yoga helps in soothing stress, reducing depression and helps in losing unwanted weight. Create sleeping schedule, avoid oversleeping and taking naps in day timings. Be modest about food and drinks and eat only a light snack shortly before going to bed.
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Yoga can certainly be relaxing, but it can also be just as stimulating! I am wide awake from all the backbends I did today… while a series of appropriate counter-poses calmed me from my buzzing state, I am still noticing the energetic changes brought on by today’s yoga practice.
I have a few yoga students that complain of difficulty sleeping at night and I would have to say that something they have in commen is their “Type A” disposition…almost always choosing power yoga over yin or candlelight classes….slow to them means boring in almost everything they do!….and yet how obvious slow is exactly what they need in their lives…I love the quote ” help them turn off their fight or flight responses and turn on their rest and digest responses” Through my recent YTU level 1 training my eyes have already been opened to the benefits and the challenges of holding poses longer….and oh yeah baby….slow in YTU is anything but boring!
I always appreciate the scientific support to what i have already discovered in my own practice. Even in my most stressful moments i am able to breathe, down-regulate and take that sense of calm into my actions. The anxious/insomniac student is very recognizable. They not only move and fidget throughout the class to escape any sensation but then they cannot remain still in savasana. I am happy to have this physiological explanation to give those students some reassurance that yoga will help! Thank you,
When I saw the picture of Jill sleeping in the bed, it reminded me of another article that Jill wrote about properly alligning the body to sleep on your side without pain. I use to wake up with neck and shoulder pain until I used Jill’s advice of using pillows as depicted in above photo Now I sleep much better and wake up without pain in my neck and shoulder.
I have also shown the above picture to some of my students to help them and they have thanked me for helping them sleep better. A picture is worth a thousand words!
I also have been plagued with insomnia. Usually I can fall asleep but awaken often. I have been trying lately when I wake to come into suptabatakanasana with a pillow under my knees and just breathing with longer exhales. Definitly helps! Thanks for reminding us to use those props
It would be difficult to underestimate the power of sleep! Jill’s suggestions to pair responses that are incompatible with an alert state with the bedtime routine and her emphasis on dedicating oneself to trying a new approach should be extremely helpful to those who might think they’ve ‘tried everything.’ Thanks Jill.
As encouranging as this article is–for all of us insomniacs– I’ve not had much success. BUT, the idea of using props brings to mind a younger self when I did use extra pillows and I slept better than I do now. It was a great reminder for me. I, also, look forward hearing more about using savasana and breathing. I will report back after using some new techniques.
Thanks