admin Savasana is also known as Death Pose, Corpse Pose, or Mrtasana. It’s the easiest pose to do and the hardest to master. The asana is less demanding on physical strength and flexibility, but it still challenges both the mind and the body in many ways.
Savasana emphasizes awareness and curiosity about the body’s breathing pattern. It is an excellent place to practice mindful awareness without exertion or effort.
Continue reading to learn about the specific mental, physical, and spiritual benefits that Savasana can provide.
Mental Benefits
Savasana is a deep relaxation pose that minimizes external distractions and sensory stimulation. A grounded body allows the mind to focus inwards and explore the body’s interior.
Interoception and body awareness will improve with practice. Interoception provides insight into the physiology of the body. It is closely related to the autonomic nervous and motor control systems. The autonomic nerve system controls the automatic and normally unconscious bodily functions such as breathing, heartbeat, and digestion.
Interoception also links to subjective feelings states. Savasana can increase your ability to detect things such as the heartbeat and breathing of the body, as well as help you feel calmer.
This is why increased interoception was linked to a decrease in anxiety and depression symptoms. Savasana also helps reduce stress, fatigue, and headaches and lowers pressure.
The meditative yoga state in Savasana is shown to help slow down the beta brainwaves in favor of slower alpha and theta states (which are associated with creativity).
Physical Benefits
Savasana allows you to benefit fully from the physical practice.
This pose allows for a conscious relaxation of muscular and skeletal tension. Surface tension melts and reveals deeper layers of muscle stress over a long savasana.
Savasana can be anywhere between six and thirty minutes long. Some suggest that you take a break in the middle of your practice to do Savasana. Savasana, regardless of its length or frequency, is an important part of any yoga practice.
You can combine Savasana with mantra and pranayama to help you better ground yourself. You can drop your Savasana by counting down from 10: “I am breathing into 10, I’m breathing out 10, and I’m breathing in 9, I’m breathing out 9, or by reciting mantras like “I am grounded, I am relaxed …,”, or “I am relaxed I am grounded.
Spiritual Benefits
Savasana, often the final asana of practice, is an excellent time to focus energy inward to rejuvenate and restore the mind and body that have been working so hard.
Savasana offers an opportunity to expand on the benefits of the mind by exploring the fifth limb in yoga: Pratyahara. Pratyahara can be explained very simply as withdrawing from your senses to gain mastery over external influences.
Pratyahara, however, is a very complex practice, which is why Savasana has been rated as one of the most difficult poses to master.
