Let's take a closer look:
As is it is a case with all yoga styles, Yin practice works on physical, psychological and energetic levels.
As we age, deep connective tissue that knits the bones of our skeleton together becomes tight, stiff and dehydrated.
Active yoga styles are profoundly beneficial for our muscular
system, yet they often fail to address health needs of ligaments and joints.
Yin yoga recognizes that different body tissues have different exercise requirements: while muscles benefit from repetitions of extension and contraction (as in active asana practice), deeper lying (yin) tissues respond best to a continuous stress (this could be compression or stretching.)
On the physical plane, yin yoga mobilizes and strengthens deep fascial (connective tissue) networks, ligaments and joints through longer-held, passive poses, therefore complementing a more active (yang) yoga styles.
Therapeutic application of yin practice is immense; in fact, one study concluded that “…the clinician’s ideal treatment
program for a patient with passive joint limitation should be mild stretching as much as it is practical throughout the 24-hour period, 7 days a week, and to start this program as soon as joint motion is allowed.”
In 1997 the National Institute of Health removed the “experimental” label from the use of acupuncture. Since then, several rigorous studies confirmed acupuncture’s effectiveness in reducing pain and nausea, as well as its benefits
for other conditions, such as irritable bowel syndrome and depression. Yet another study has shown that acupuncture can be effective even without the needles (acupressure) – all we need to do is stress / compress the acupuncture point.
On an energetic level, Yin yoga can be viewed as a form of needless self-acupuncture: holding postures for a period of
time stresses acupuncture points, thus enhancing the flow of energy (Chi) through corresponding channels, or meridians, affecting the health of tissues and organs.
On a psychological level, Yin Yoga practice employs mindfulness to holds a mirror to our most common mental patterns.
What do you do when a difficulty arises?
Most of us react in a variety of knee - jerky + unskillful ways:
~ we try to (mentally) run away,
~ change what is happening,
~ push the discomfort away with tension,
~ or give up, freeze up, and suffer through what is happening, all the while feeling like a helpless victim.
Yin practice provides us with a kind of a laboratory, where the difficulty / challenge
is contained within the microcosm of the posture.
Holding a yin pose for a period of time can become a fertile ground for developing a more skillful approach to managing the discomfort (either mental or physical) through the practice of mindfulness:
~ we begin by noticing our mental habits;
~eventually we develop the capacity to pay attention and hold whatever is happening in our awareness without attachment, aversion or judgment.
You can imagine the usefulness of this skill off that mat: what if it was
possible to approach uncomfortable life situations in a non-reactive way?
