When you’re feeling heavy, congested, or blocked, nothing helps you rejuvenate as quickly as a few cleansing yoga twists.
How can simple yoga postures help you clear your mind and get your digestion and circulation flowing? Twists help restore and maintain your spine’s range of motion, improve flexibility and mobility, and encourage your liver and kidneys to work at their optimum levels. All of these benefits combine to help you clear out what you no longer need and create space for what you do want.
Physically, our spines are designed to work in three different ranges of motion: front to back (sagittal plane), side to side (lateral plane), and rotation (transverse plane.) The odds are you don’t do a lot of twisting throughout the course of your day. Ignoring this vital spinal movement can lead to imbalances in your muscles and connective tissues and create back pain and general stiffness and loss of range of motion of your spine. Twisting more frequently encourages a healthy spine, supple muscles, and massages internal organs.
Twisting is an important component in preventing back pain because it helps lengthen the muscles and connective tissues surrounding the spine, which keep the joints mobile and healthy. Twists come in all types of varieties and sometimes more gentle versions are appropriate for those who have experienced back pain while more advanced versions are great for those with normal spinal rotation. Regardless of what type of twists you practice, you can reap the benefits of a healthier spine.
When we twist, our organs are compressed and when we unwind, we’re encouraging fresh oxygenated blood to flow more freely. So although it may not be accurate to say twisting detoxifies your system, it definitely aids in the process. Twisting feels invigorating and wakes up every cell in your body. When we feel these benefits, it impacts our mindset and emotions too. Twist can wring out stagnation, and calm your anxiety. More than seventy percent of your immune system is in your gut, so keeping it healthy and flowing is key to vibrant health.
How we feel physically is intrinsically woven into how we feel mentally and emotionally.
A well-rounded yoga practice emphasizing twists will leave you feeling refreshed, rejuvenated, and ready to go! Try this week’s classes and see just how invigorated you feel on every level.
1. Keith Allen: Twist & Flow
2. Elise Fabricant: Yoga for Better Digestion
3. Celest Pereira: Twist it Out Detox Flow
4. Rob Loud: Twists & Binds