The Beauty of “Doing Nothing”
I often joke in my yoga classes that I teach “Slowga”, a.k.a. slow yoga. I’ve always gravitated towards the slower, more gentle styles of yoga: “Slow Flow” as many studios call it, Yin yoga where you hold poses for upwards of 8 minutes (I did a Yin YTT last Spring that I loved), and of course, the queen of them all, Restorative yoga, where in a 60 minute class you’ll probably only do 3 poses…total.
For those of you who aren’t familiar with the world of Restorative, here is the definition via Judith Hanson Lasater, one of Restorative yoga’s most well-known teachers:
“Restorative yoga is the use of props to support the body in positions of comfort and ease to facilitate relaxation and health.”
Basically, you use a luxurious number of props like blankets, bolsters, blocks, straps, eye bags, sandbags, and maybe even a chair, to get yourself into very comfortable, very supported, gentle yoga poses. Then once you’re set up, you hold them for a very long time—preferably at least 20 minutes, in order to allow your body and mind to fully relax.
Last month, I completed a 5-day Restorative Yoga Teacher Training in Detroit with Lizzie Lasater, (Judith Hanson Lasater’s daughter), and it was wonderful. A group of about 30 of us spent 5 days “doing nothing”, as Lizzie liked to joke, learning about all the different poses and props, setting ourselves up in elaborate positions, and then relaxing deeply into the poses…and staying there…for a long time.
It was divine.
While there’s a time and a place for fast-paced, energizing yoga classes, I feel like more often than not, what people really need is to slow down. We live in a culture that glorifies busyness and prioritizes work over just about everything else, and while there’s nothing wrong with hard work, there is something wrong with working to the point of burn out and exhaustion. Rest—actual rest, is almost entirely missing from modern society, and in this training I was reminded how absolutely imperative it is for our health and wellbeing.
Here are my biggest takeaways from the training:
“Rest” and “Sleep” are two different physiological states and we need BOTH of them in our daily lives. Restorative yoga is a means for truly resting the mind and body.
It takes the average person 15 minutes to reach a state of relaxation, so in Restorative yoga, we hold poses for up to 20 minutes so that deep rest can occur. The goal is to be hovering somewhere between the states of rest and sleep.
Most of us live in a constant state of input and output, spending all of our waking hours either consuming or producing, but it is important to have moments of just being. I know that personally, rest only comes to me when I become still. I feel it as a physical “downshift” in my body—a place I’ve only really been able to reach in yoga or at the beach.
There are five “Condition for Calm”: 1. Stillness, 2. Quiet (not necessarily silence, just quiet), 3. Darkness (eye bags and eye masks are helpful for this), 4. Warmth (always use a blanket), and 5. Time—there is no shortcut.
Props are at the heart of Restorative yoga. They create support for the body and allow us to be held.
Savasana is the single most important yoga pose you can do—and you don’t need to do an intense asana class in order to “earn” it. You can take savasana whenever you want. Part of my Restorative yoga teacher certification includes completing a digital course with Judith & Lizzie, a “Savasana Intensive” that requires me to take a 20-minute savasana every day. Why did I never think to do this before? It has been such a welcome and refreshing practice for me.
Intrigued? You should take a class. Does Restorative yoga sound awful to you? I hate to tell you, but that probably means that you need it the most (as is often the case).
Give yourself permission to be unproductive. Give yourself permission to “do nothing”. Give yourself permission to be still. Give yourself permission to relax. Give yourself permission to just be. There is so, so much value in rest.
My fellow Restorative yoga teacher trainees and I on our final day together
