Savasana is both easy and difficult to achieve.
Alice is doing Savasana for the first time. She is discovering that you do not go to sleep in this pose despite its appearance.
Alice is working hard to stay focused on the pose but her attention keeps wandering away. She never realized how difficult that this pose could be.
Savasana is one of the simplest poses to do physically. All you have to do is lay down on your mat and get comfortable. However the pose is very challenging mentally.
What is Savasana
Savasana is the Sanskrit name for this reclining pose. This pose is commonly referred to as “corpse” pose in English. Like its name implies, all you do in this pose is lay on the floor and get comfortable.
Savasana is usually the last pose that you do in your yoga practice. It is during this pose that you work on your meditation.
Savasana brings many benefits to your body. For example it
- Calms the brain and helps relieve stress and mild depression
- Relaxes the body
- Reduces headache, fatigue, and insomnia
- Helps to lower blood pressure
In Savasana you prepare the body physically for the mental challenge that will follow.
How to do Savasana Physically
Like most seated posture you start in Dandasana with your legs together and straight out in front of you.
From here you lay down on your mat on your back. You let your feet naturally fall away from each other relaxing the legs.
At the start your arms are by your side. Move them a hand width or so away from the body with your palms facing the ceiling. Keep moving your arms away from your sides until your shoulders tell you that you have found a comfortable place.
At this point your arms and legs are at rest now it is time to bring your attention to your torso.
The muscles in your back should be relaxed, neither stretched nor compressed. Move your hips and shoulders enough to remove any tension from the muscles in your back.
Finally you lift or lower your chin so that your neck and head are a natural extension of your spine. This slight movement will remove any tension from the muscles in the neck.
To complete the physical setup, let your eyes fall closed.
Now that you have brought your body to a complete state of rest on your mat it is time to focus on the most difficult part of this pose, the mental aspect.
How to do Savasana Mentally
You start the mental part of this pose by bringing your awareness to your breath. You observe your breath as you breathe in and out.
You are working to keep your mind focused on the present moment. Do not let your mind move to the past or the future.
This will be more challenging than you think the longer that you stay in Savasana. You stay in Savasana for several minutes not just for a few breaths.
Where does the challenge come from?
As you stay in the pose for a longer and longer length of time you will discover that your mind has wandered to either the past or the future. Your mind is reviewing something else and you are no longer focusing on your body.
Your challenge in this pose is to keep your mind, your awareness in the present moment. You are attempting to stay focused on your body and not letting your mind wander off to the future or the past.
Everyone’s mind wanders. The challenge is to reduce the frequency that this wandering happens and to shorten the amount of time that your mind has left the body behind. You are not a bad person if your mind has wandered.
Once you become aware that you mind is not focused on your body and your breath just bring your attention back to your body and focus on your breath once more.
Eventually over time the amount of time you can focus on your breath and stay with your body will become longer and longer before your mind wanders.
However it can be difficult to focus on your mind if your back is uncomfortable. So let’s see what you can do to make your back more comfortable.
What to do if your back hurts in Savasana
Alice like a lot of people is having a problem getting her back comfortable on her mat.
This is not an uncommon problem. Many people have tight muscles in their hip joint that prevents their back from getting into a comfortable position when their legs are straight out on the floor.
To take care of the discomfort in her back, Alice bends her knees up and draws her feet in towards her hips. This will take some pressure off of her lower back muscles and the discomfort should go away.
Usually lifting your knees is enough, however you may wish to put a bolster under your knees and then you can let your legs relax completely and still keep them bent.
Which brings us to the next point.
What to do if you are pregnant
Alice is not pregnant, but if your are you should not lay on your back for an extended period of time. This is not good for you or your baby.
In this case you do Savasana on your side and you use some pillows to support you and your baby.
Put a pillow under you head so that your neck extends straight out from your spine and it is not hanging down.
Bend your knees and draw them up slightly. Put another pillow between your knees.
Finally put a third pillow under your baby.
These pillows should help you to get comfortable and allow you to work on the mental aspects of the pose.
Summary
Alice has discovered that Savasana is a challenging pose mentally but not physically. The first challenge for Alice is getting her physical body out of the way so she can focus on the mental challenge of keeping her mind focused on the present moment. Who knew such a simple pose could be so challenging.
There are big benefits to this pose. The more you can focus your mind the calmer you will become.
Next Step
Talk to your teacher if you can not get comfortable in Savasana. They will help you to adjust your body so that you are comfortable and able to focus on the pose.
