Yin yoga has particularly gained popularity in yoga studios over the last 10 years – and for very good reason. Our daily lives are often heavily influenced by yang energy; activity, speed, and thoughts. Precisely because of this, we need yin to balance and create calm, presence, and depth in what for many is a hectic daily life.
Yin yoga is fantastically effective at getting into the body, feeling ourselves, and (re)connecting with our inner selves. For this reason, yin yoga has earned its natural place in the yoga studio.
When I offered weekly yoga classes, I quickly found that yin yoga was in high demand and the classes filled up fast, while the more dynamic hatha yoga was a bit more challenging to fill. Both have their advantages, but most of us probably have a greater need for the slowness and calm we find in yin yoga to create balance in everyday life.
What is yin yoga?
Yin yoga is a meditative and calm form of yoga that works deeply into the connective tissue and meridian lines.
When we stay in the poses for longer, we allow ourselves to be present with whatever arises. This can be physical discomfort, thoughts, or emotions that we might otherwise avoid or overlook in a busy daily life.
This deep presence helps us connect with ourselves on a deeper level. We learn to listen to the body's signals and create space for and focus on what occupies us.
Yin yoga was developed based on the theory of the five elements from Traditional Chinese Medicine. The five elements are wood, fire, earth, metal, and water.
Each element is associated with specific organ pairs, emotions, and seasons/climates. Through gentle yin yoga stretches, we can create balance in our body and mind by focusing on the energies and emotional themes most relevant to the particular season.
You can read much more in my bestseller book The Energy of the 5 Seasons, which you can buy right HERE.
Yin yoga is a practice where poses are held for a longer time – typically 3-5 minutes – to allow time and space for deepening and connection.
Since the body remembers all feelings and experiences, accumulated emotions, traumas, and memories can surface when we work with the body through gentle long yin yoga stretches, which gives us the opportunity to process or even release them. This can happen both consciously and even unconsciously.
The special connection between yin yoga and emotions makes it a profound practice for body and mind.
Yin yoga supports the body's energy flow and the connection between body, mind, and emotions. In yin yoga, you are invited to find calm, listen to the body's signals, and create space for release where it is needed and possible.
A practice for everyone
Yin yoga is for everyone. It's not about flexibility or performance, but about creating a space for introspection and self-care. Yin yoga is a practice that can help bring inner peace, balance, and insight. The most important thing is that you approach your body with curiosity and patience, allowing yourself to be exactly where you are. There's nothing to achieve and nothing to perform. There is no goal in yin yoga.
If you are curious to try yin yoga, my best advice is to find a good instructor who focuses on the fact that we are all built differently and use our bodies differently.
Yin yoga is here to stay. I have personally experienced great benefits from yin yoga, which I practice every evening on my living room floor.
Yin yoga for beginners - 5 basic principles
Yin yoga is a practice that invites us to be present in the body, listen to the body's signals, and create balance through gentle, slow, and deep stretches.
Here are five fundamental principles that can help you get started:
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Take your time to get into the pose
Slowly ease into the stretch. Move calmly and mindfully as you settle into a pose. This way, you give yourself time to feel your body and connect with your senses, while also calming your nervous system. It can take time to relax into the pose and muscles, and thus go deeper into the stretch and connective tissue, so take your time. -
Find the stretch that feels right
Listen to your body and feel where the balance between tension and relaxation lies for you. It's about finding that point where you can feel a gentle stretch or tension without it becoming too much or going too deep too quickly. As yin yoga pioneer Bernie Clark says, it's about creating change without overstraining the body. -
Create calm in the body
Once you've found the right stretch, try to let your body settle. Relaxation allows the muscles to relax, enabling you to go deeper into the stretch in the connective tissue. This allows the connective tissue to slowly release and also helps the nervous system find calm. In fact, the parasympathetic nervous system is activated when you hold a good long stretch, which reinforces the calm in mind and body. You can lie still in a stretch, or you can use small, gentle movements to support the flow in the body and to ease into the stretch, but always remember to return to stillness. Gentle movement can especially help us get into stretches in vulnerable areas such as the hip area. -
Stay in the pose with presence
Time is relative. This means you should feel how long you can stay in a stretch. Come out of the stretch when you've had enough. As a general rule, the pose is held for 3-5 minutes, or longer if it feels good. But there are also poses that can feel difficult to stay in, and then you should, of course, come out when you've had enough. Focus on being aware and present in the body, so you can slowly go deeper into the stretch if needed. Often a stretch will subside, and then we can go a little deeper. Therefore, it is also recommended to start gently and then slowly go deeper. Remember there is nothing to achieve. -
Slowly come out of the pose
When you are ready to come out of a pose, move slowly and consciously. The body can feel unstable after a longer period of stillness and you might feel slight tenderness in the area you have stretched, as you have gone deep into the stretch, so it is important to take your time to come out of the pose to avoid injury. Therefore, it is important to go into the pose slowly and come out of it slowly again.
Yin yoga poses - forget what it should look like and feel how it feels
In yin yoga, we work with the understanding that we are all built differently and use our bodies differently. Therefore, the poses are only guiding, and the most important thing is that you find the variations that suit your anatomy and physique.
It's not about performing or achieving a specific look in the poses – it's about listening to the body and finding what feels right for you.
One of the principles of yin yoga is to work with gentle stretches and go 80% into the stretch. Often we tend to overdo it and go too deep too quickly because we want to feel something immediately. But sometimes we don't really have contact with the body and forget to pay attention to how it feels.
When we go too deep too quickly, we risk tensing up and blocking the work we want to do in the connective tissue.
Often, less can do it. When we take our time to slowly ease into the stretch, we will suddenly experience that it becomes more intense because the body has time to relax. The more we relax, the deeper we can go.
The muscles protect the connective tissue, and if we rush, they unconsciously tense up, preventing us from reaching the connective tissue in the same way. But when we stay in a pose and take our time, the body and muscles can slowly relax, let go, and perhaps surrender, and we may feel the stretch deeper without needing to increase the intensity.
As I have said so many times in the yoga studio: Forget what it looks like, and feel how it feels.
Yin yoga basic poses
Although stretches and poses are relative, there are of course some basic poses in yin yoga that one can start with.
The poses originate from classical hatha yoga, but they differ somewhat from hatha yoga, which is also a different yoga style and has a different approach.
If you want to read more about the basic poses, I can refer you to yin yoga pioneer Paul Grilley's website, where you can read much more.
Yin yoga is a practice that invites us to be present and listen. It's not about pushing ourselves, but about finding calm and giving ourselves the time it takes to go deep into the gentle long stretches – at our own pace.
Yin yoga is not about perfection or performance. The most important thing is that we listen to the body and find the variation of a pose that feels right for us. Where we feel a gentle stretch, which may slowly intensify.
The philosophy behind yin yoga
Yin yoga bridges two of the world's oldest traditions: Traditional Chinese Medicine and Vedic philosophy from India. Although they have different cultural and historical backgrounds, they share a holistic approach to human well-being and recognize the flow of energy in the body as crucial to our health.
This unique combination makes yin yoga something very special, where elements from both traditions meet.
While classical hatha yoga can be traced back thousands of years, yin yoga is a modern form of yoga developed in the 1970s in the USA.
Paulie Zink, a martial arts master and yoga teacher, founded yin yoga, which was later further developed by talented and recognized instructors such as Paul Grilley and Sarah Powers. Yin yoga combines ancient Taoist principles with modern scientific understanding.
Yin yoga is therefore not just a practice, but also a philosophy that unites the wisdom and experience of the past with the knowledge of the present.
Yoga vs Yin Yoga
If you're new to the world of yoga, you'll quickly discover that there are incredibly many forms of yoga today. The original form of yoga, which can be dated thousands of years back in time, is called Hatha Yoga. Yin yoga, like many other forms of yoga, is a newer form of yoga developed over the last 50 years.
Hatha yoga is actually a fine combination of yin and yang. Calm and activity. Strength and flexibility. The inner and the outer. Hatha has spawned many forms of yoga, which are both more yin-based and more yang-oriented. For example, Ashtanga yoga (power yoga) is a more yang-oriented form, as is Bikram yoga, while yin yoga and restorative yoga are the slow, gentler yin-oriented yoga forms.
Yin yoga is the perfect counterpoint to the more yang-oriented yoga forms – and perhaps exactly what we need when everyday life feels too hectic.
When we talk about yoga, we often refer to more dynamic and active forms of yoga, such as hatha or vinyasa, where the focus is on movement, strength, and flow.
Yin yoga differs by being a slow and meditative practice where we stay in the poses for longer and work with the body's connective tissue and meridian lines rather than the muscles.
Where active yoga forms often focus on building energy and strength, yin yoga invites us to the opposite. It's not about performing or moving quickly from pose to pose, but about finding a gentle stretch that we can stay in, allowing us to feel ourselves.
Yin yoga - connective tissue and meridian lines
In yin yoga, we focus on the connective tissue, which is the tissue that connects the entire body; it connects muscles, bones, and organs. Connective tissue is both plastic and elastic and consists of collagen.
The closest comparison to collagen is gelatin. That's why I've often used gummy bears in my classes to demonstrate connective tissue. I've brought both a new, pliable gummy bear that can easily be stretched in all sorts of directions, and an old, dry gummy bear that starts to crack and get damaged with the slightest twist.
The illustration with the two gummy bears explains the importance of keeping our connective tissue hydrated and moist. We do this, of course, by drinking plenty of fluids, but also through pressure and stretching of the connective tissue through yin yoga.
Whether we press or stretch an area, we are working on it. And through the good, gentle, long stretches in yin yoga, we release tension, help the flow in the body, and bring new energy, nourishment, and moisture to the area we are working on.
In yin yoga, we generally work with a cold body. This means that we are talking about cold stretches. As mentioned, connective tissue is both plastic and elastic, and when we warm up the body, elasticity increases, whereas in a cold body, we work more with plasticity. The stretches are therefore more sustained and profound, and perhaps for the same reason, we cannot go as deeply into the stretch as in a warm body. However, we go deeper.
It is important to note that precisely for this reason, we must slowly work our way into and out of the stretches to avoid injury.
Also, please remember that even if you are working with a cold body, you must not get cold from, for example, lying on the floor. We react very differently to the good yin yoga stretches. Some get warm, while others can get chilled.
Therefore, you must, of course, ensure you are warm and perhaps have a blanket over your body or whatever you need.
I myself get cold when I do yin yoga, so I always lie on a thick blanket with a duvet on my living room floor in the evening and do yin yoga.
Meridian lines flow in the connective tissue
When we stretch the connective tissue, we are simultaneously working with the meridian lines – the energy channels described in my blog post about Traditional Chinese Medicine.
The meridian lines are connected to the body's organs and constitute an integrated energy system, and by stimulating them through yin yoga, we can help energy (Qi) flow freely.
It's fascinating to experience how long, gentle stretches can release stagnant energy and create a deep inner balance. And sometimes even release emotions or traumas.
Morning Yin Yoga
I personally really enjoy yin yoga in the evening as yin yoga has a wonderfully calming effect, but many also benefit from the good stretches in the morning and for good reason. In the morning, when we wake up after a whole night in the same position, we can often feel a sense of stiffness in the body. This is because the connective tissue has become more 'sticky' and dehydrated during the night. It tightens up during the night – or "shrinks".
If we look at many animals, such as a dog, one of the first things they do in the morning is stretch after a full night's sleep, and we may also feel a natural urge to stretch. This makes perfect sense, as it helps to loosen up and "create space" in the body again. It is an intuitive reaction from the body, attempting to restore flexibility in the connective tissue.
Connective tissue also becomes less elastic with lack of movement and with age, as the body's moisture decreases. This, of course, causes the connective tissue to "tighten" and gives us a feeling of stiffness in the body.
It is only recently that research has begun to attribute value to connective tissue. New research shows that connective tissue is actually the body's largest sensory organ, with 6-10 times more nerve receptors than muscles.
To work into the connective tissue and feel it loosen up in the body, slow and gentle movements are often required, as well as time, because connective tissue is also plastic.
Morning yin yoga is therefore an ideal way to wake up the body. I highly recommend it with a gentle yin flow, so you don't fall back asleep on the mat. Through calm, gentle movements, you can stretch and press the connective tissue, stimulate the senses, and help the body restore flexibility and balance for the day – a wonderful way to start the day.
Yin Yoga - Stretch your way to well-being
It is fascinating to see how yin yoga can transform not only the body but also provide a deeper connection to the mind and emotions.
Throughout my many years as an instructor, I have observed how the body responds to long, gentle stretches, and how calmness slowly spreads both physically and mentally. And not least, how emotions, memories, and traumas emerge when space is created for them, so they can perhaps be acknowledged or even released on the mat.
It has been very beautiful to witness and be a part of.
Yin yoga is stretching for well-being, and is a holistic practice that connects body, mind, and emotions, while also building on modern anatomical understanding. With its calm and meditative focus, yin yoga works deeply into the body's connective tissue and meridian channels while also working with the mind and emotions.
What is yin yoga good for? - Open up to Emotions, trauma and memories
The body remembers everything, and emotions can manifest as tension and blockages in our body. When we give ourselves time to feel and let go, we can release the emotions and experiences that have accumulated in the body – consciously or unconsciously.
I have seen it many times on the mat how a single yin yoga pose can bring repressed emotions to the surface and create a sense of release.
It is in the meridian channels that energy flows, but also where we often store emotions and experiences. Emotions settle in the body, especially if we suppress them.
When a dog is startled, it shakes. It shakes off the shock. As humans, we are good at holding emotions in or even suppressing them, especially the so-called negative emotions, which are somewhat taboo.
For this reason, I have been glad to be able to talk about everything that others don't want to talk about: fear, anger, loneliness.
In my view, emotions are some of the most exciting things to work with. Emotions are some of our most important ingredients and help create the reality we live in.
We have to look at the so-called negative to normalize and embrace it. We are just human, and all emotions have a function.
Yin yoga for stress
Many people turn to more introspective practices when they are stressed; meditation, mindfulness, and yin yoga.
For good reason, as these practices are extremely effective against stress – especially preventatively.
Nevertheless, not everyone is necessarily ready to go that deep that quickly, especially if they are deeply stressed. Meditation and mindfulness are recommended only to a limited extent.
Yin yoga can be a good transition, as there is still a bit of activity involved and you can choose to come out of a pose yourself. However, even yin yoga can feel overwhelming if you experience inner chaos, racing thoughts, and stress, as yin yoga precisely creates space to look at these states and feelings, and perhaps even brings up what is uncomfortable to look at.
Therefore, it is important to feel and assess where you are in the process and what you need. Remember that less can be more. There is no goal.
Yin yoga is an ideal practice for reducing stress because in yin yoga we work with body, mind, and emotions. When you practice yin yoga, your muscles relax, your breathing becomes calm, and your parasympathetic nervous system is activated. This allows the body to find deep relaxation and reduce stress levels.
An important part of yin yoga is immersion and presence – the ability to feel what is happening in the body. This increased body awareness helps you discover and respond to your needs before stress is allowed to build up.
Stress can cause connective tissue to contract, leading to stiffness and pain. Through gentle stretches and a sensory-based approach, yin yoga can release tension in the connective tissue and help the body regain balance, both physically and mentally.
Do you want more information about yin yoga?
According to Traditional Chinese Medicine, the climate and energy outside the body affect the climate and energy within the body. This applies both physically and emotionally. When the sun is out and we feel the summer heat, we may feel happier and lighter than when it rains on a sad autumn day.
If you wish to delve deeper into yin yoga and learn more about how to work with the body's energies, emotions, and balance, you will find plenty of inspiration in my book The Energy of the 5 Seasons.
The book explores how the five elements, the seasons, and the emotions connected to them influence our body and mind. It is filled with practical advice, knowledge, and exercises that help you create more balance in everyday life.
In the book, I have chosen to include an overview at the end of each seasonal chapter with my suggestions for yin yoga poses that can be practiced during that season. It makes sense to work on specific body areas during different seasons to work with the energy in the meridian channels and organs associated with that season. It might sound complicated, but it's quite simple when it comes down to it. The book is written in an easy-to-understand way so that everyone can learn about the theory behind yin yoga.
If you are new to the world of yin yoga and need instructions for the poses, you can find options here, and otherwise, I highly recommend seeking out a skilled yin yoga teacher who can help you get started.
You can purchase the book "The Energy of the 5 Seasons" in my webshop HERE.
With love,
Isabelle Evita
