Waking Energy 7 Timeless Practices Designed to Reboot Your Body and Unleash Your Potential

when you are deepening into a yin pose. Nowhere more than in the yin practice does the concept of
effortless effort come into play; in order to properly, fully, and safely stretch your connective tissue,
you must be as relaxed as possible as you move in and out of poses and hang out in poses with as
little muscular effort as possible.
It’s not muscular issues that ultimately impede our ability to run and jump and squat and fly as we
age; it’s our joints. One of the most incredible benefits of the yin practice is how it gently stretches,
massages, rehabilitates, and reinvigorates the tissue that connects our joints. The joints of the spine,
knees, hips, and shoulders, which become prone to injury after years of use and abuse, are lubricated,
restored, and opened—made more flexible.
Yin poses “juice” the joints. They reconstitute the naturally occurring “fluids of youth” in our joint
capsules—the synovial fluid and hyaluronic acid responsible for joint lubrication—which diminish
as we age. This all-important “juice” is replenished by the practice, ensuring the smooth glide of our
tendons and ligaments. In addition to making bones and cartilage glide smoothly through the joints,
hydration provides our entire skeletal system with a kind of cushioning; this cushioning is akin to
applying WD40 to machine parts to make them respond more efficiently and interact smoothly with
the other aspects of the overall machine or system.
By placing the body in positions that challenge the range of motion of the fascia and as we
appropriately stretch and put pressure on it, a slight degree of inflammation occurs that encourages the
body’s healing responses to kick in. Nerve signals from the body stimulate the brain to dampen pain
by releasing natural feel-good opiates, encouraging the natural sedation of the fight-or-flight response,
which calms the central nervous system, lowering our blood pressure and encouraging blood to flow
optimally throughout the body. Signals from the brain travel through the connective tissue, stimulating
growth and repair processes in our cells and rehydrating the tissues and joints.
Energy Delivery
Yin yoga poses unblock and flush out our meridians, restoring overall physical and emotional
balance. The movement of muscles, the stretching of connective tissues, and the pressure exerted upon
bone tissue in yin poses generate bioelectrical activity in the meridians in much the same way that
acupuncture needles do. The stimulus of the needle magnetizes, attracts, and concentrates energy,
activating the collagen that comprises the connective tissues by sending signals along the route of the
meridians to landmarks along the way. Through a similar process, yin poses transmit energy
throughout the musculoskeletal system, sending signals to cells like osteoblasts, which manufacture
our bone tissues, and fibroblasts, which synthesize the collagen that our connective tissues are made
of.
The meridians and the nadis conduct a reciprocal relationship with the chakras that run along the
sushumna nadi, our central energy channel. The chakras, like the engines for our subtle body, gather,
transform, and then distribute energy through the nadis. This energy feeds into our organs, ensuring
proper nurturing of prana throughout our whole being.
Because the meridians rule specific geography in the body, when prana flows smoothly through
them, ample energy is delivered to our organs and we feel emotionally balanced. When a meridian is