Sore After Your Yoga Practice? Here's What to Do (And Not Do) to Find Relief

• The soreness after yoga you may be experiencing is called delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS), which usually occurs 12–48 hours after exercising.
• The level of soreness you might feel depends what style you’re practicing, how intensely, and how frequently - as well as your individual body type.
• And even if you’re an experienced yogi, there’s a good chance you might still feel sore from time to time. Though yoga is typically a low-impact exercise, it can strain your muscles.

• Yoga is filled with eccentric contractions that cause microscopic injuries to the muscle and fascial tissues.
• Our bodies produce an inflammatory response to these micro-tears and this causes muscle soreness.
• But, it turns out this muscle soreness is actually a good thing. Once your muscles recover, you’ll experience muscle growth and improved performance, ultimately making you stronger.
• Of course, if your soreness after yoga is very painful, see a doctor. But for run-of-the-mill soreness—which means pain is minimal—there are plenty of smart tricks you can try to ease your discomfort.

• Drink water, not sports drinks, says Amy C. Sedgwick, an emergency medicine doctor and Yoga Medicine certified yoga instructor in Portland, Maine.
• “We want to help increase our blood volume so this fluid can be distributed more easily to the tissues to allow transfer of nutrition, healing cells and flushing out metabolic waste. Hydration is the way that happens.”

• Without sleep and rest, your body can’t “gear down” to allow for the parasympathetic nervous system (rest-and-digest mode) to be in charge, says Sedgwick.
• “Without enough sleep, the neuroendocrine system will not prime the body and tissues for repair and relief.”

• Exercise is the best way to relieve feeling sore after yoga.
• In fact, research shows doing the same muscle movements and sequences you did prior to feeling sore - but in a less intense way - can help relax muscle spasms and allow muscles, connective tissue, and joints to find greater range of motion.

• Foam rolling for 20 minutes immediately after working out can reduce tenderness — even if it causes some discomfort.
• Take it slow and be gentle; you don’t want foam rolling to cause so much pain that it actually makes your soreness worse.

Make sure your post-workout snack or meal includes :

• PROTEIN, which repairs and builds muscle, and
• CARBOHYDRATES, which can help speed recovery.

Not only does this feel great, but it actually helps to :

• Initiate the parasympathetic nervous system to reduce tension and
• Allow the body to be in a state of healing.

• And when you do, be sure to stretch through all planes of motion.
• This will increase circulation and range of motion while also preventing chronic tension and pain.

• One of the absolute best ways to cope with feeling sore after yoga is to do more yoga.
• Concentrate on the areas that hurt and try to gradually relieve tension and tightness.
• Becoming inactive because activity gives you some soreness is a very poor response to your soreness, and is likely to leave you in even more pain the next time you practice.

• It may seem like a smart idea to pop an aspirin when you’re feeling sore after yoga, but it’s not the best way to help speed your recovery.
• Inflammation is how the body responds to any type of injury. In order to properly repair any damaged tissue, you must have inflammation. If you take away that inflammation with a drug you are hindering your body’s natural healing mechanisms.

• Unless you’re an ultra-endurance athlete, you are not likely depleting your system so much that you need caffeine, energy drinks, or supplements.
• This only adds unnecessary calories and other substances to a body that simply needs gentle movement, hydration, and rest.

• Long, static stretches or over-stretching sore muscles can do more harm than good.
• The tissues are already slightly damaged and working on healing. If you over-stretch your muscles and “wring them out” of all their fluids, you reduce their ability to heal and may even damage them in the process.
• Gentle is the key to recover from soreness after yoga.