Sometimes you’ve just got to slow everything down.
When your life is racing full-speed ahead, so is your mind. Restorative yoga classes, including our Gentle Flow, Roll Out and Meditate and Restore, help provide that physical and mental balance needed to reduce stress and promote recovery.
Here are five reasons to spend a little extra time opening up and breathing in the benefits of our nourishing and restorative yoga classes.
1. Better Flexibility
Think you have to “work” to get a benefit from your workout? Think again! While all forms of yoga help make you bendier over time, a regular practice of restorative yoga (think our Roll Out, Meditate and Restore, and Gentle Flow classes) helps you explore what happens when you release tension in a more gentle and passive way. Long, supported poses, like those held in our Meditate and Restore, help your body to stretch, soften, and move deeper into those muscles and joints thanks to yoga postures held with the support of props including our blocks, bolsters and blankets.
2. Decreased Muscle Soreness
If you live with intermittent pain or simply have tired and sore muscles from the previous days workout, restorative yoga can help you relax and restore your muscles so that pain may be relieved and your natural mobility is restored. After a workout, like a run or ride, muscles, and joints become sore because of the build-up of waste products such as lactic acid. Rolling Out after a workout can help reduce delayed-onset muscle soreness, helping to eliminate those next day aches and feelings of stiffness. So the faster those exhausted muscles can receive adequate support for recovery, the faster they can rebuild and get you on your feet for that next workout.
3. Quiet Your Mind
Our restorative classes can be a calming hug for not just your body, but for your overstimulated mind. When we calm the mind, we reduce (or even mute) the hundreds of thoughts that are constantly running through our heads. Slowing your mind gives your whole-being restorative experience - mind, body, and spirit. And as a result, you immediately feel more calm, centred, and present.
4. Decreased Risk of Injury
Restorative yoga increases circulation throughout the body by promoting increased blood flow, especially during a Roll Out class. Better circulation means a better range of motion and more effective body movements.
And just like stretching, rolling using our Yoga Tune-Up Balls can be integral to injury prevention, increasing blood flow, decreasing soft-tissue density and relaxing tight muscles. Muscles that move more effectively and within a natural range of motion are less prone to injury and will keep you on your feet longer.
5. Good Self-Care
Restorative yoga is a great way to put yourself first. Life can be complicated and stressful, and we could all use a stress-busting tool like yoga to soothe our minds and bodies. Yoga brings harmony to your soul and elevates your relationships with others and yourself by keeping your overall mood and behaviour in check. Relieve stress, find a sense of calm, and use your yoga practice to support the healthiest, happiest and best version of you. Join us Monday at 8:30pm for Roll Out, Tuesday at 7:45pm for Meditate and Restore, and Thursday at 7:30pm for Gentle Flow.