Savasana

Savasana has two core words: "Sava" means corpse and "asana" posture. Savasana might seem like rest after extending, bending, stretching, and twisting ourselves in various shapes. But at its core, it is one of the most challenging poses because we are asked in this posture to bring the body, mind, and spirit into alignment and imitate a corpse.

Since birth, we are bombarded with the external world with all its sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and experiences, and we learn to grow and conform to the world. In today's fast-paced life, many experience an overload of responsibilities, activities, and information to digest and manage, creating loops of distraction according to yoga philosophy (Avidya).

These distractions can create physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual imbalances, such as anxiety, worry, and stress. These can upset digestion, absorption, and elimination processes, limit proper circulation, raise blood pressure, hamper respiration function, establish headaches, and play havoc with sleep patterns.

But in Savasana, we learn to withdraw our senses (Pratyahara), instilling calmness and breath awareness, allowing us to move inwards, finding presence, rejuvenation, introspectiveness, and balance. Although Savasana is usually practiced at the end of our yoga session, it can be done at any time, especially when experiencing everyday burnout, exhaustion, or imbalances.

The setup is essential so the body is in the correct alignment to receive the life force (prana) through the body's channels (Nadis). Start by establishing a uniform grounded position in a supine position, extending the buttocks away from the trunk and extending the lower back. It is also essential that the groins and armpits glands are open and you are not gripping the glands, so moving the arms and legs away from the body is vital. Suppose you are a person with a sensitive lower back. In that case, placing a bolster or rolled blanket behind the knees is advisable to release the lower back/sacral area better.

Finally, there should be a sense of softness, elongation, and relaxation in the back of the neck and sides of the throat. If you experience any gripping, you can elevate the back of the neck and head on a blanket until a release. Look for the tongue and the head's temporal sides to be relaxed. Once we find this balanced position, the breath works efficiently, drawing prana to all tissues and releasing toxins with exhalations.