Yin Yoga inducing bad sleep!????

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christodoulou_george
Posts: 14
Joined: Thu Oct 25, 2012 9:18 pm
Location: Athens, Greece

Yin Yoga inducing bad sleep!????

Post by christodoulou_george »

Hello there! Hello Bernie!

I encounter a problem my self and my partner.
We are doing Yin Yoga a couple of weeks now, every day.
We mainly use the routines of Paul Grilley, one for the spine and one for the hips. One day the spine, the other day the hips.
We see a large improvement in our bodies especially in areas where we were blocked for years and we could not tackle on them so deeply as with yin yoga.
But a strange thing is happening to both of us.
We wake up at 6.00 am without any reason and then after 7.00 am we are back to sleep until 9.00 am. The quality of the sleep generally is bad. We do not feel rested.
These days that we started Yin Yoga we do not do Yang at all. Might be that the reason?
Although we feel that Yin Yoga is very effective how much Yang should be done? Should be equal time?

Thank you in advance

George and Magdalena
Bernie
Posts: 1293
Joined: Sat Sep 23, 2006 2:25 am
Location: Vancouver

How much yin and how much yang?

Post by Bernie »

Your question is actually a common one, but let's first look at your sleep issues: Could your lack of sleep be associated with your yoga practice? Yes, possibly, but there are many many reasons why sleep can elude us: stress, diet, hormones, change of seasons, change of time zones, change of activities, job, exercise, sickness, disease, just simply aging, etc...

An all yin yoga practice is inherently as unbalanced as an all yang practice: we need balance in life. Are you nicely tired when you go to bed at night, or do you lie awake for a while? What is your evening routine: how long before going to bed do you power down an computer devices (ipad, iphones, laptops) or TVs? (Powering down one hour before bed is a good idea.) A yang practice earlier in the day will help to tire us out by bedtime, but don't do a yang practice right before going to bed: that's the time for a final mediation for the day or a short yin yoga practice.

The older we get the more we need a yin practice, but you will always need some yang too. I am now in my 60's and my preferred split is 50/50. When you are younger you can do more yang, but still do some yin. As you get older, more yin but still some yang. The yang and yin do not have to be both practiced on the same day, but it would be nice if they could be.

Experiment! Try to find out what works for your body. Once you know, please come back and share your findings with us.

Good luck!
Bernie
christodoulou_george
Posts: 14
Joined: Thu Oct 25, 2012 9:18 pm
Location: Athens, Greece

Very good answers and very useful

Post by christodoulou_george »

Thank you very much Bernie. I appreciate very much your help.
Definitely we will share our findings. Today we start to take a log.
We also noticed that it is better for us to do all postures in 3 minutes instead of 5. Perhaps 5 mins are good for N.American bodies which generally speaking are bigger than Europeans.
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