2 Hour Restorative Yoga with Live Music, December 9, 2018
Join HEALTHQUEST yoga teacher Kat Stewart and musician Michael J for this Pranayama based 2 hour Restorative Yoga Practice with LIVE music… a very special event!
We all need to rest deeply and bring balance to an active lifestyle. Gentle Restorative poses are held for 10-15 minutes allowing the body to completely let go and the restorative process to begin. You will be guided through pranayama breathing patterns to still the mind and calm the nervous system. Obtain a peaceful inner state of being, feel deeply relaxed, allow layers of stress to release and have a knowing experience of meditation. You will leave the practice as if you went on a true vacation!
This 2 hour RESTORATIVE YOGA Practice will feature gentle, rejuvenating poses to relax your body, calm your energy and still the mind.
The LIVE MUSICAL melodies of Hand-Pan and Flute will transport you to realms of bliss as you are guided gently into the calming poses.
The investment in your health and wellbeing is only $35 for HQ Members and Guests
Sign up at the Front Desk at HQ or call 707.254.7200 to register.
For more information call: Kat 707.291.2749
This workshop event brought to you by the HealthQuest Fitness Center Yoga Department
The Benefits of Restorative Yoga -
Restorative yoga balances a fast lifestyle and has an enormous capacity to heal physical and mental symptoms that are stress related, and as we know, many diseases these days are stress related.
When the pace of life is fast, our minds move fast, too. When we are also attracted to a strong, fast-moving yoga practice, we can easily overstimulate ourselves — and our nervous system takes the beating. We may end up feeling easily overwhelmed, tired, with a racing mind. We get sick quicker and more often.
Practicing Restorative yoga is a great help to anyone who is chronically ill, acutely ill, or recovering from some injuries.
Why ‘Restorative’ yoga?
The beauty of Restorative yoga is that there is no muscular contraction involved. We believe we have to “work” to increase flexibility, but often we achieve more opening in parts of the body that we perceive as tight by softening and relaxing than through an active asana practice. During a Restorative yoga sequence, you still stretch, but you relax fully in the stretch so that tension can slowly be released.
Because the body and mind relax, literally becoming softer, we also create space to get in touch again with our natural qualities of compassion and understanding of others and self.
Restorative yoga benefits:
Enhances flexibility
Deeply relaxes the body
Stills the mind
Improves capacity for healing and balancing
Balances the nervous system
Boosts the immune system
Develops qualities of compassion and understanding toward others and self
Enhances mood states
Do you remember?
Remember that feeling of being truly relaxed, the body all soft, warm, supple, and glowing? Feeling so comfortable in your own skin that you hardly notice your physical body? Remember that feeling of your mind being laid back, sort of watching everything from a distance with a big smile on your face, knowing beyond a doubt that everything is okay, exactly as it is? In this state, you know that life is just as it is, that there is nothing to accept or reject.
Do you remember what it is like to rest in your true nature? Realize you are not separate from life, any more than the air in a balloon is different than the air surrounding it, or the wave separate from the sea.
The true meaning of yoga…
The true meaning of Yoga is to experience union. To see through the illusion of being a separate being. To see that we are all pervaded with and made out of the same energy, which is the ground of all being.
I hope that I have motivated you to take the time out to practice Restorative yoga. Especially if you are the type that feels you’d rather do something active, because you don’t have enough time. You will benefit the most ...
©2012 Esther Ekhart
Another blissful morning in the Napa Valley, home of HealthQuest Fitness Center