Compressing, releasing in twists

This week the theme in my yoga classes is twists.
My mama is visiting this week and I asked her what she wanted the theme to be. (I already knew what she wanted. But I asked anyway.)
I have gotten a lot of great feedback from my students on this week’s sequence. They tell me they feel great, relaxed, stretched out, etc.
Twists are awesome for the body and do so many good things for us.
As I have been telling my students this week, twists help us with digestion, to detox, to de-stress, release tension and anxiety and help us keep our spine muscles mobile.
Twists compress and release your abdominal region, which can increase circulation to your organs and stimulate your digestive system, according to an article on Yoga Journal about healthy digestion.
When you twist you compress (squeeze) and when you release (soak) there will be a rush of fresh blood that will flood your digestive organs, according to DoYouYoga’s article 5 health benefits of yoga twists.
When you release, you re-introduce fresh blood, which can help cleanse the cells of any built up waste because with increased circulation comes increased cellular detoxification, also according to the DoYouYoga article linked above.
Twists help to de-stress while you open the chest, shoulders and back, all of which can help to decrease feelings of anxiousness while also releasing stored tension in the body, also according to the article from DoYouYoga.
If you are pregnant, doing deep twists is not a good idea as twists cut off circulation and blood flow. And when there’s a baby growing inside your tummy you want to make sure she or he gets constant blood flow.
An article on Pop Sugar says when pregnant one should avoid deep twists as they decrease circulation, so twists should be done in an open position, such as this modified twist. (I recently wrote a post on types of poses that should be avoided when pregnant.)
Because twists help to detox the body drinking plenty of water after a practice is a good idea.
My mom’s review of this week’s sequence: The best part is you do the twist and release it’s like, ahhhh. It’s so yummy. You don’t realize how tight things are in the body until you start the squeeze and soak method.
I’ll take that as a good review.