Savasana

Yoga invokes principles of health, harmony, and balance—three ideals that we work to achieve in the modern age. The pose, or asana, that best achieves these ideals is “savasana,” which is typically performed at the beginning and at the end of a yoga session. Savasana is the “corpse pose”, which is performed by lying flat on your back, with your arms and legs spread out about 45 degrees, the eyes closed and the breaths deep. This relaxing posture is designed to rejuvenate the mind, body and spirit by allowing the benefits of all of the yoga poses to seep into the body. It is a good way to relieve stress and tension through cooling after exertion.
 
In savasana, the whole body is completely relaxed one the floor with an awareness of the chest and abdomen rising and falling with each breath. The entire body is scanned for any traces of muscular tension. The goal is to relieve all tension from the muscles. All control of the breadth, mind, and body is completely released for the duration of the posture. While it may seem easy, this is actually one of the most challenging positions because it is very difficult to basically disassociate yourself from your own body! The posture is released by slowly deepening the breath, flexing the fingers and toes, reaching the arms above the head, stretching the whole body, exhaling, bringing the knees to the chest and rolling over to the side in a fetal position.
 
Talk about relaxing! In our busy lives and hectic world, we could all benefit from some built in stress-relieving techniques…just another fine reason to get into yoga.