What Is Somatic Yoga Detox? Explore Key Somatic Yoga Detox Exercises to Rid Your Body of Toxins!

You’ve probably heard that yoga has benefits including reducing stress and improving flexibility, but have you heard that somatic yoga benefits include helping your body detox? That’s right, many people believe that somatic yoga can help you detox by helping toxins leave the body (18). 

Unfortunately, toxins are incredibly prevalent in our daily lives. Whether it’s absorbing them through the air, food, or cosmetics, we often have an overload of toxins in our bodies. While we have many organs that help rid our bodies of these toxins, these organs can become overworked. This is when it can be beneficial to introduce somatic yoga detox into your life to help combat the overload of toxins in your body. Somatic yoga detox is a natural, simple, and effective way to help eliminate built-up toxins in the body and promote overall well-being.

In this blog, we’ll discuss how to determine if you have toxins in your body, somatic yoga detox exercises, and somatic yoga benefits.

What Is Somatic Yoga?

Somatic yoga is a form of mindful movement that combines elements of yoga with somatic movement, mindfulness techniques, and movement to connect with the body on a deeper level. It is incredible for many reasons and somatic yoga benefits include releasing pent-up emotions and ridding the body of toxins (5). In addition, somatic yoga for weight loss has been found to be effective for some individuals. 

“Somatic” means “of, or relating to, or affecting that body” (11). Essentially, somatic movement focuses on the mind-body connection. In addition to somatic yoga exercises, there are also beneficial somatic exercises for weight loss and somatic exercises to release trauma that can be incorporated into your daily routine.

Somatic yoga encourages you to move your body in a way that feels good to you, with your movement guided from the inside rather than the outside. In other words, it focuses on helping you develop a deeper relationship with your own body (17). 

Somatic yoga is different from traditional yoga that you may be used to. Somatic yoga means “yoga from the inside” and instead of focusing on putting your body in specific poses, it emphasizes how specific movements feel to you from the inside of your body (17). It’s about becoming more in touch with your body by gently and mindfully sensing how your body responds to each somatic yoga pose.

How to Remove Toxins from Your Body Through Somatic Yoga

You may be wondering how somatic yoga helps remove toxins from the body. Due to its physical exercise aspect, yoga is believed to help the body’s natural detoxification processes (18). It does this due to its two key components: twisting and sweating.

Twisting

That’s right, twisting is believed to help with detoxification. B.K.S. Iyengar, the founder of Iyengar Yoga, believed that the twisting movements that accompany yoga create a “squeeze and soak” action in the spine and internal organs (4). Essentially, when you twist your body, your organs compress, which allows fresh blood to flow in and eliminates old blood and waste, resulting in healthier organs (18). Think of it as wringing out the toxins from your organs—like wringing out the dirty water from a dishrag (18).

As for the spine, twisting allows for an increase in circulation to the vertebral discs of your spine, which results in a healthier spine (18). In addition to stimulating circulation, twists can help relieve tension in the muscles in the spine, abdomen, and rib cage (18).

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Sweating

You may have heard that breaking a sweat actually has many health benefits. It doesn’t just naturally help your body cool down, it also helps your body detox from toxins. 

Sweating during yoga can help your body’s detoxification system. This is due to the theory that sweat carries out toxins from the body. Some studies have even shown that sweating draws out heavy metal toxins from the body, including arsenic, cadmium, lead, and mercury (1). Therefore, incorporating a somatic yoga detox routine into your routine can help your body consistently remove toxins from your body, which will result in better, healthier skin and overall well-being.

Read more: What Is a Somatic Shoulder Release? Key Exercises for Releasing Emotions Stored in the Shoulders

How Do You Know If Your Body Is Full of Toxins?

Toxins can build up in your body despite living a healthy lifestyle. These toxins can enter your body through air pollution, pesticides from the vegetables and meat you eat, or be absorbed into your skin through cosmetics such as lotions or makeup (9).

If you’re wondering if your body is in need of a detox, you can determine if it’s full of toxins from these main signs:

• Digestive issues. A toxin overload in your body can produce an unhealthy gut, leading to health issues such as chronic gas, bloating, heartburn, constipation, and diarrhea (9).
• Fatigue. If you’re struggling with tiredness and chronic fatigue during the day—no matter how well you slept— this may be a symptom of a toxin buildup in your body (9).
• Mood changes. Mood swings and brain fog may both be signs of your endocrine system being affected by too many toxins in your body (9).
• Skin troubles. Frequent skin breakouts or skin issues, including acne and eczema, are key signs that your body is overloaded with toxins and is in desperate need of a detox cleanse (9).
• Insomnia. Insomnia can be a sign of needing a detox. This is due to the fact that your liver is working overtime during the night to try and cleanse your body of built-up toxins (9).
• Unpleasant odors. Bad odors may not necessarily be hygiene-related but detox-related. You can suffer from both bad breath and body odor when your body is in desperate need of detoxification (9).

Some additional signs that your body is in need of a detox from built-up toxins include hair loss, brittle toenails, nausea, and weight gain (9). If you’re struggling with any of these symptoms, it may be time to introduce some detox techniques, such as somatic yoga, into your life to help rid your body of an overload of toxins.

How Do Most Toxins Leave the Body?

There are many ways your body works naturally to release and detox from toxins. Fortunately, we have several organs that help this process and keep our bodies healthy. These include:

• Liver: As one of the body’s largest organs, the liver plays the most vital role when it comes to detoxifying your body. It does this by filtering our blood and breaking down and eliminating harmful toxins and bacteria (7).

• Lungs: The lungs play a powerful role in toxins leaving your body by filtering toxins from the air you breathe, such as air pollution and cigarette smoke (7).

• Intestines: One of the functions of the intestines is to keep your body healthy by destroying parasites and other harmful organisms (7).

• Kidneys: Toxins and waste are filtered by the kidneys and released through the urine (7).

While these organs are incredibly beneficial for ridding your body of toxins, they can also become overworked. Due to the high amount of toxins you often absorb, your organs can sometimes struggle to rid your body of all the toxins and may need some help (7). The elimination of toxins from the body is essential, as an overload of toxins can weaken the immune system and negatively affect your overall health (7). This is where somatic yoga detox exercises come in.

What Are the Best Somatic Yoga Detox Exercises?

Somatic yoga focuses on enhancing body awareness and the connection between the body and mind, integrating movement with conscious attention to sensations. Unlike regular yoga poses, which emphasize form and flexibility, somatic yoga encourages slow, mindful movements that help release deep-seated tension (19).

The goal is to engage the nervous system and cultivate internal awareness, allowing practitioners to feel and heal stored emotions or trauma in the body. Therefore, somatic yoga is more introspective, prioritizing how the body feels rather than how it looks in a pose.

Bow Pose

Bow pose (Dhanurasana) focuses on the sensations in the body as you lift your chest and legs off the ground. Instead of aiming for a deep backbend, the emphasis is on feeling how the muscles in your back, hips, and legs engage and release. Each movement is done slowly, with mindful attention to breathing, fostering a deeper connection between body and mind.

The bow pose is a great pose for beginners. In addition to benefiting the organs and systems of detoxification, it also strengthens and improves flexibility in the spine, arms, and legs (8), and it’s one of the simplest somatic exercises for weight loss due to it helping get rid of excess belly fat (2).

How to perform the bow pose exercise:

1. The first step is to lie down on your abdomen with your forehead on the ground and your knees shoulder-width apart.
2. With straight elbows, bend your knees and hold your ankles from the outside.
3. As you breathe in, push your feet into your hands, lift your chest and knees, and look diagonally upward. Take a few deep breaths. Hold this pose for 10-20 seconds.
4. After completing the pose, release your breath and gently lower your chest and knees to the ground (2).

Half Spinal Twist

In somatic yoga, the half spinal twist is performed with slow, mindful movement. The focus is on how the body feels while gently twisting, exploring the range of motion in the spine without forcing the twist. Each breath invites release and relaxation in the torso, emphasizing body awareness over achieving the full form of the pose.

This pose is beneficial for stimulating the functions of the stomach, gallbladder, liver, spleen, and pancreas, thereby helping your body’s digestive waste processing and blood detoxification processes (8).

How to perform the half spinal twist exercise:

1. Sit on your heels. Put your buttocks on the floor to the left of your legs.
2. Bend your right leg. Place your right foot by the outside of your left knee after crossing your right leg over your left leg.
3. Keep your arm straight while putting your right hand flat on the floor behind your back.
4. Place your right hand on the floor. Next, raise your left arm straight up in the air.
5. Now it’s time for the twist. Lower your left arm, bringing it outside your bent knee, then grasp your right ankle. Hold for between 30 seconds and a minute.
6. Relax into a resting pose, then repeat this process, twisting the other way (6).

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Breath of Fire

With breath of fire, somatic yoga emphasizes a gentle, mindful approach. Instead of rapid, forceful breaths, attention is placed on the sensations of the diaphragm and abdomen, which cultivates deeper awareness and energy flow with each breath cycle.

This exercise helps your body build up heat, which helps boost your body’s natural detoxification system (18).

To perform the breath of fire exercise:

1. Sit up straight, making sure your spine is upright.
2. Place your hands palm up on your knees and then close your eyes.
3. Take a deep inhale and notice how your belly relaxes and expands, then how your diaphragm pulls your belly back in on the exhale.
4. Make sure your inhalation and exhalation pace is quick but even.
5. It may take you a while to get the right pace down. It helps if you open your mouth and pant like a dog. Once you have the pace down comfortably, you can close your mouth and continue the exercise (18).

Read more: Somatic Response: Understanding Your Body’s Reactions

What Are the Symptoms of Yoga Releasing Toxins?

Releasing toxins is amazing and beneficial for your body, but at the moment of release, you may experience some physical side effects from these toxins leaving your body. When you use yoga to help release toxins, you may experience symptoms after your yoga session as a result of these toxins being released into the bloodstream (14).

These symptoms can include headaches, drowsiness, or fatigue (14). So after your next yoga session, you should keep in mind that the fatigue and drowsiness you may feel aren’t just from an intense, sweaty workout, but most likely from the toxins leaving your body. Don’t worry, these symptoms and sensations won’t last long and generally subside pretty quickly (14).

When it comes to detoxing in general, you may experience aching muscles or joints, fever, sweating, bloating, body odor, rashes, and sleepiness while your body cleanses and detoxifies the  toxins (3).

Frequently Asked Questions

• Are somatic exercises legitimate?

While more conclusive studies are needed to prove the effectiveness of somatic exercises, they are believed to help with issues such as chronic pain, flexibility and balance, healing trauma, and increasing emotional awareness (10).

• Is somatic experiencing scientifically proven?

There is certain evidence that somatic experiencing, which is a type of trauma therapy that aims to address the symptoms of trauma by releasing stored trauma in the body, may have potential as a PTSD treatment (19).

• Is somatic healing real?

According to the theory of somatics, a person can find healing through somatic therapy. This is based on the idea that the things that happen in a person’s life are stored in the brain and the physical body and that somatic healing comes from improving the mind-body connection (13).

• Is somatic exercise evidence-based?

Studies on somatic exercise for trauma and pain have found there to be a beneficial correlation between this type of therapeutic approach and improving symptoms of PTSD (16). In addition, somatic exercise is being researched in relation to pain, as it is believed to help relax the nervous system, decrease tension, and reduce emotion or muscle contractions (16).

The Bottom Line

Somatic yoga is known for its benefits in stress reduction and increased flexibility and is also believed to help detoxify the body. By integrating somatic movement with mindfulness, this form of yoga helps facilitate a deeper mind-body connection and supports the natural detoxification processes of the body. Somatic yoga emphasizes internal awareness, which allows individuals to tune into their bodily sensations and promote the release and detoxification of built-up toxins.

Yoga detox benefits come from twisting, which helps compress and “wring out” toxins from internal organs, and sweating, which helps expel toxins through the skin. While detoxification is important, you may notice certain symptoms of toxins leaving your body, such as headaches, fatigue, and drowsiness. However, these side effects are temporary and should soon pass.

If you’re looking for a way to incorporate natural methods to help your body detox from toxins, somatic yoga may be the right fit for you. To learn more about somatic yoga and detox, read BetterMe’s articles on somatic yoga poses, somatic yoga benefits, and weight loss detox.