According to most yoga teachers, Shavasana is an essential part of your yoga practice because it allows you to relax.
First and foremost, I’d like to clarify that this asana has two names, “Shavasana” and “Savasana,” but both serve the same purpose.
Don’t get mixed up when reading or hearing the two names for this asana. This is not an English word; it is a Sanskrit word with the same meaning in both languages.
Shavasan, also known as Savasana, is a pose that allows us to be completely calm on the inside while remaining fully active on the outside.
While embalming, this asana promotes inner peace, harmony, and ease.
A practitioner can perform this asana after mandookasana and pawanmuktasana
How Shavasana Works
In Shavasana, energy flows inwards and upwards in each body part, beginning with the feet and ending with the head. And you may feel as if you are kicking and releasing disease, fatigue, or injury from the body. This asana assists in releasing tension, suffering, and exhaustion.
The key principle of it is to remain completely calm on the inside while remaining fully active on the outside. While performing Shavasana, a few instructions must be followed.
People who do not know how to rest appear exhausted. They lack the necessary strength to do anything.
In a dead man, the bones become rigid; in Shavasana, the bones are completely aware and energetic.
Shavasana Steps
Lie flat on your back. Maintain a one-foot distance between the two feet.
Hands should be placed slightly away from the body, with the palm facing the sky.
Maintain a straight neck. The body as a whole should be straight and symmetrical, but relaxed. Close your eyes gently.
You need to follow four steps of this asana.
First Step
When we look at the body from the outside, we can see three major parts: the feet, the trunk, and the head. These three components are crucial in this asana.
Let’s gently shake and relax our toes. This will help to calm the nerves in the feet. Shake your shoulders to relax your trunk.
Shaking the neck will relax the nerves in the brain. Assume that your entire body is relaxed. This way, every organ in the body will be relaxed.
Second Step
Normalize your breathing. This requires no effort. After a while, the breathing will return to normal.
Deepen your breathing. Feel elated while inhaling and delighted while exhaling. Take your time.
Our breathing activity is also divided into three parts.
The abdominal effect of breathing
Its impact on the middle section
Its impact on the lungs.
Feel the entire abdomen fill with air as you inhale; it will then flow into the middle and finally into the lungs.
Exhaling will empty the lungs first, then the middle section, and finally the abdominal section.
Remember that there should be no tension anywhere during this deep inhalation – exhalation activity such as another breathing exercise.
Breathe in and out in a natural and pleasant manner.
Third Step
Begin deeply, naturally, and subtly inhaling (without producing a sound). Now, with the mind’s eye, visualize each relaxed organ of the body one by one, from the toes to the crown (crown of the head).
Begin slowly exhaling and reversing the mind’s eye’s gaze from the crown to the toe, inspecting the body step by step.
Engage the mind completely in this process. When a practitioner reaches maturity in this asana, he or she is on his or her way to achieving Pratyahara (withdrawing the senses from the objects and drawing them upward) Dhyan, and concentration (meditation)
Fourth Step
Earth, Water, Fire, Air, and Ether are the five elements that make up our body. They are positioned in our bodies as follows.
The Earth Element extends from the toes to the knees.
Water Element begins at the knee and extends to the naval.
The Fire Element begins at the naval and progresses to the throat.
From the throat to the brows’ middles (Element of Air)
From the center of the brows to the crown of the head (Element of Ether)
Consider these elements from the soles of the feet to the crown of the head. Elements will be learned as a result.
A metaphysical element that transcends all elements will also be felt.
Image Source: freepik
It encourages the achievement of such a state. Return slowly from the metaphysical to the physical consciousness and sit up in the normal pose at the end.
“The entire body” is the focus of attention.
The important thing to remember here is that Shavasan is a complete asana in and of itself.
Maintain perfect body stability as well as Mind and Pran control.
While introspecting, the body with closed eyes prevents the mind from wandering. Do you make a slow and consistent effort to keep your mind in check?
The mind will become so absorbed in visualizing the inner parts of the body that it will be impossible for it to go outside with constant and slow practice.
Things to Remember
This asana should always be done after the other asanas.
To reap the most benefits from this asana, do not sleep while performing it.
Shavasana Benefits
- It relieves all physical and mental tensions. It is extremely effective at restoring sound sleep.
- It lowers high blood pressure and regulates the respiratory system.
- A natural balance is established between the body and mind.
- Consistent practice of this asana also aids in the development of heart contentment and mental equanimity.
- Shavasan’s blessings include a sound body, a sound mind, and a mind that is established, freshness, energy, a natural harmony between the body and mind, and unfailing health.
- The charm of the outer personality reflects the beauty of the soul.
- This asana relieves heart disease, insomnia, nervous debility, mental imbalance, memory loss, fear psychosis, and a variety of other psychological ailments.
The Methodology of Savasana
Lie flat on your back with your legs apart but not touching. Your arms should be close to your body, palms facing up. Keep your eyes gently closed, your facial muscles relaxed, and breathe deeply and slowly through your nostrils.
Scan the body and bring awareness to your feet, imagine feeling your feet, skin, bones, and muscles with tingling armed healing energy, and visualize that light moving up into your calves.
Feel that warming light move up into the hips, and then see that light move up into the abdomen front and back.
Imagine a tingling light surrounding your skin or your fingers, then bones and muscles, and continue to feel that light moving throughout your entire body.
Feel the warm light surround you from head to toe, then to your legs, and use your breath to guide it as it scans your entire body from feet to forehead.
There is nothing else to do but completely surrender to the pose.
Implications While Performing Shavasana
Most of the time, the practitioner falls asleep or his mind wanders from one thing to the next, making it impossible for him to relax.
It is difficult to focus on one thing at a time.
Some people are unable to keep their bodies stable for long periods of time.
The second truth is that some people do not suppress their vain worries.
According to a yoga teacher, some people believe that lying down for an extended period of time causes neck or back pain.
If you start to feel sleepy while in Shavasana, simply start breathing faster and deeper.
How Easy is Savasana
While many people think this is a simple posture at first, its simplicity is deceiving. Because it is difficult to stop the mind when doing nothing.
The goal of savasana is to have the body and mind completely still and relaxed.
It is a difficult task because, while performing this asana, your body should be motionless and your mind should be calm.
Shavasana is the second part of the meditation that produces stable relaxation after lying down on the mat and closing the eyes.
It goes without saying that perfecting the savasana will take some time.
Sleepiness and a restless mind are two common obstacles that can prevent you from fully benefiting from this posture.
If you begin to feel drowsy while in Shavasana, increase the rate and depth of your breathing.
If your mind is restless or wondering, focus your attention on all of your bodily sensations. Just try to focus on one point, whether it is the sensation of the floor beneath you or the rhythm of your breath.
We recommend starting your yoga asana practice with at least 3 – 5 minutes of savasana.
Return to it throughout your posture session to relax and rejuvenate the body/mind, and then finish with at least 3-5 minutes more.
Scientific Outcomes of Savasana
According to scientific research, savasana helps to tone the parasympathetic nervous system more deeply. While in rest and digest mode or restorative mode in this asana, you simply kick back on the couch.
What Healthline has to say about it
In 1975, the British medical journal Chandra Patel published an interesting study on Shavasana. She chose a few people who had high blood pressure and taught them yoga and savasana for 20 minutes every day. She discovered drastic results in these candidates after three months.
What she discovered was impressive: people’s blood pressure was 20 points lower in the diastolic reading and somewhere between 10 and 15 points lower in the lower of the two readings between the start of the study and when they finished it three months later.
She kept track of this over a 12-month period, and most of the people who learned to do Shavasana in her study did it for 20 minutes only three times a week.
They were encouraged to do it when they got home, but not everyone did, which is a problem with yoga. Yoga only works if you practice it.
So science has proven that Shavasan is beneficial in diseases such as high blood pressure and diabetes.
Conclusion
This asana has been shown to help regenerate energy levels in the body. Starting this asana is not difficult, so why not begin it today, because we all require energy to complete our daily tasks, whether we are students, businessmen, doctors, professionals, or people involved in any profession.
Spend some quality time in Shavasana with the right strategy and process.
When you finish Shavasana, take note of how you feel after the practice. Carry this calm energy and mindfulness with you throughout the rest of your day.
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