Yin vs restorative yoga

Yin vs restorative yoga divides on intent: yin holds a shape for minutes in order to place a slow, steady load on connective tissue, while restorative arranges you on props so completely that no load is placed on anything and the only thing happening is rest.

Both are still. Both are quiet. Both hold postures for far longer than an ordinary class. From the doorway they look nearly identical, which is why they are constantly confused. Inside the posture they are opposites. In yin you should feel a definite dull pull and you agree to stay with it. In restorative you should feel almost nothing, and feeling a stretch means the setup has failed and needs another blanket.

A rough test that settles most cases: if you could fall asleep in the posture without anything going wrong, it is restorative. If falling asleep would be a bad idea because your hip is being asked to do something, it is yin.

A yin class contains perhaps eight to twelve postures across an hour, almost all of them seated or lying, held for three to five minutes each. The teacher talks less than in any other kind of class. There is usually a timer.

The instruction that defines the style is to go to your first sensation and stop, rather than to your maximum. Muscles are asked to release rather than to stretch, because a gripping muscle prevents the slow load reaching the tissue underneath it. So knees are bent, the shape is rounder and less impressive than the same posture in a hatha class, and the work happens in the last two minutes rather than the first thirty seconds.

Claims about what is happening to the fascia during those minutes are made confidently online and the underlying research is thinner than the claims are. What can be said honestly is that long passive holds produce range of motion changes that many practitioners find last, and that the practice is a well established way to work on stiff hips without loading them. Anything beyond that, about hydration of tissue or the movement of energy along meridians, is a model rather than a measured fact, and I would rather tell you that than repeat it as science.

The risk in yin is real and it is quiet. Five minutes is long enough for a passively loaded joint or an already irritated nerve to be aggravated without your noticing until the next day. Sciatica, a recently sprained ankle and a hypermobile joint are all good reasons to be careful in a yin class, and to be less impressed by depth than the person on the next mat.

Nothing. That is the entire method and it is much harder to accept than it sounds.

A restorative class may contain only four or five shapes in an hour. Each one is built out of props, and the building takes time: a bolster along the spine, a blanket under the head so the chin is not tipped up, a second blanket over the body because temperature drops when the muscles let go, a strap around the legs so they do not have to be held, something over the eyes. Once you are in it, the shape holds you rather than the other way round, and you stay for ten or fifteen minutes.

What is being aimed at is a state rather than a range of motion. The best evidence available is modest and worth reporting accurately: the largest randomised trial of restorative yoga, comparing it with an active stretching programme in adults with metabolic syndrome over a year, found the yoga group did better on fasting glucose and no better on the other metabolic measures, with both groups improving on several. So restorative yoga is not a metabolic intervention with strong evidence behind it. Its case rests on something simpler, which is that deliberate, supported rest is a thing modern life is short of and most people do not know how to take.

The practical value I see is in exhaustion, in illness recovery, in the fortnight after a bereavement, and in people who have forgotten how to stop. For those situations there is nothing better, and no amount of vigorous practice substitutes for it.

Match the class to your current condition, not to your idea of yourself.

• Stiff hips, a runner or a cyclist, or you sit for a living. Yin. It is the most efficient way to get into the hips without loading them.
• Genuinely exhausted, sleeping badly, or under sustained stress. Restorative. Yin will feel like one more demand and you will resent it.
• Recovering from illness or surgery, or pregnant. Restorative, with a teacher who is told about it. Long passive loading is the wrong idea for a body already dealing with something.
• Flexibility has plateaued despite regular practice. Yin, once or twice a week, alongside your usual practice rather than instead of it.
• Sciatica, a hypermobile joint, or a recent sprain. Neither without advice, and restorative before yin. Long holds are exactly where a quiet aggravation happens.
• You cannot sit still and it makes you anxious. Start with restorative in short doses, or with yoga nidra, which gives the mind a voice to follow.

My verdict. Neither of these is a complete practice and both are frequently sold as if they were. I would not want any student of mine doing only yin or only restorative, because a body also needs to be asked to hold itself up, to balance and to work, and neither of these styles does that. What I would say, and I say it in the hall regularly, is that most people over fifty who are already active would get more out of one restorative session a week than out of an extra vigorous one. The people who need it most are always the ones who tell me they have not got time to lie on a bolster for an hour. Between the two, if you are tired, choose restorative; if you are stiff, choose yin; and if you are both, choose restorative first and come back to yin in a month.

Both styles are unusually well suited to home practice, because there is nothing fast to get wrong and no sequence to remember.

For restorative, you do not need bolsters. Three folded blankets, two cushions from the sofa and a belt from a dressing gown cover almost everything. The one rule is that the props go in until you feel nothing holding you up. If you are still working, add something. A very serviceable home restorative practice is three shapes at fifteen minutes each: legs up against a wall, a supported reclining position with a rolled blanket along the spine, and a supported forward fold with the chest resting on a stack of cushions.

For yin, you need a timer and the discipline to not come out early. Four postures at four minutes each is a real practice. Set the timer where you cannot see it counting down, because watching the last minute is a study in impatience rather than a practice.

The bedtime sequence on this site sits between the two: shorter holds than a yin class, more support than a hatha one, and built for the half hour before bed rather than for a studio.

Plainly: neither of these is what happens in the hall here. The classes here are not labelled by style. They cover asana, pranayama and relaxation, taught slowly, and nobody in this hall is going to arrange you on four bolsters.

The page exists because the question is a real one, because the two are genuinely confused with each other, and because I would rather send somebody to the right class elsewhere than have them come to mine and find it is not what they needed. If you are exhausted, my class may not be the answer this month. A restorative teacher may well be.

Elements of both do appear in a smaller form in what happens here: postures held long enough that the muscle stops arguing, supported positions for people who need them, and a proper savasana at the end of every class rather than a token three minutes. If that middle position sounds right, the hatha yoga page is the closest description on this site of a slow held practice, and the bedtime yoga sequence is the closest thing here to a restorative practice you can do tonight.

Both of these are floor practices with long holds and few poses, which is why they get confused. The difference is whether there is a stretch in the pose at all.

A yin hold puts a real load into the tissue and leaves it there for three to five minutes. A restorative hold puts you on props until there is no load at all and leaves you there for ten. The nearest thing to a restorative pose in the ordinary library here is a supported Balasana over a bolster, or Setu Bandhasana with a block under the sacrum, held for five minutes and doing nothing.

A yin version of a forward bend is closer to Paschimottanasana with the knees bent and the back deliberately rounded, held far longer than any hatha class would allow. Neither tradition uses Sirsasana or anything like it. If what you want is the evening version of this at home, the bedtime sequence and Yoga Nidra are the practical route, and yoga for anxiety explains when it is the right choice and when it is avoidance.

Two warnings. Long holds are not gentle by definition: three minutes in a deep shape can do more to a joint than thirty seconds in a strong one, which is why a yin class is not automatically the safe option for a body with back pain or for a beginner over 40. And neither practice warms you up, so if you are going to do anything else afterwards, put a minute of Marjariasana and a standing pose like Tadasana in between. Breathing in either room is left alone rather than counted, although Bhramari at the end suits both. Neither is taught in this hall; what is taught is described on the classes page, and the closest thing here to a restorative evening is the short routine done at half speed.