Restorative Yoga for Body and Mind

A sequence to relieve fatigue and stress, promote well-being, and bring healing balance into your life.

By Liz Owen

Restorative yoga might best described as a supported, conscious body/mind relaxation practice. When supported with props, the body relaxes and opens, releasing tension and stored-up toxins that can cause illness. Restorative poses offer benefits to both the body and mind, for conditions ranging from insomnia to asthma to chronic pain to migraines to depression.

Chest-opening poses, for example, encourage breath and prana (energy) to flow through the entire body. Forward bends gently lengthen all the muscles of the back body. Done in sequence, a restorative yoga practice will bring your whole body into a deeply relaxed state, and allow your mind to become quiet and reflective, with your mental, psychological, and emotional bodies in blissful balance.

Get started with restorative yoga.

Liz Owen's yoga classes create a rich space where each student may explore a joyful state of awakening to the beauty and light that exists inside the human heart. A certified Iyengar yoga instructor and member of the Yoga Alliance, she has taught yoga for over 17 years and has studied with many renowned teachers, most notably BKS Iyengar, her long-time teacher Patricia Walden, and Zen Buddhist meditation master Thich Nat Hanh. Liz teaches in the Boston area and throughout New England. www.lizowenyoga.com.

Hints for Practice

As you practice this sequence, let your mind soften into the sensations your body feels as it releases and opens. Immerse yourself in the journey from outer to inner experience, and you will find yourself at your center, where all the parts of yourself come into wholeness.

Before we begin the sequence, here are some hints for practicing:

Arrange for enough support, in the form of bolsters, blankets, pillows or other props, so that no muscular effort is required for you to remain in a pose. Let the pose do its work. Your job is to let go.

Keep your body warm so it can fully relax.

Use an eyebag whenever you are supine so that your eyes can relax.

Use less or more support so that your body is completely comfortable. You may stay in the poses as long as you are comfortable.

Yoga Starter Kit

Inverted Cleansing Pose

The Pose: Lie down and raise your legs up a wall. Your hips should be as close to the wall as possible. Bend your knees, place your feet flat on the wall, lift your hips, and place a bolster underneath them so that the bolster is 3-4 inches from the wall; then take the legs back up to straight. You know you're in the right position if your abdomen is soft and flat and your chest is open. You may stay with your back flat on the floor if the bolster creates discomfort in your lumbar.

The Benefits: This inverted pose reverses the flow of blood and energy and rejuvenates the whole body. The heart rests in an open position while breath flows freely through the torso. The chin is slightly tucked, giving a gentle massage to the glands in the throat and chest. This is a wonderful pose for balancing the endocrine system.

Deep Relaxation

The Pose: Lie down comfortably on a mat or blanket. Support your head on a folded blanket so that your neck and throat are soft, adding a rolled up hand towel under your neck if needed, and support your knees on a bolster to lengthen and release your low back. Release your shoulders away from your neck and allow your arms and legs to completely relax. Breathe softly and naturally, focusing your mind on the sensations of the flow of breath through your opened and relaxed body.

The Benefits: Deep relaxation is the true gift of yoga practice. The soft and natural flow of breath energy through every part of your body allows you to move into a state of complete stillness, while your mind becomes deeply quiet through its attention to the flow of inner energy. Thoughts and emotions soften and lose their power. You become centered in the knowledge of your true "Self," where wisdom, insight, and freedom are present.

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