If someone asked you to name the most important yoga pose, perhaps a fancy handstand would come to mind, or maybe you would imagine a twisty pose that involves feet on the head. I’m guessing the effortless position of lying flat on your back with a pillow over your eyes does not come close. In fact, despite the wide variety of physical poses and styles of yoga, each class works towards the pose Savasana.
I’m Shannon, a Pilates instructor and Yoga teacher at PPF, and over the last 5 years of teaching, I have witnessed a widespread struggle with the seemingly easy pose, Savasana. However, despite the discomfort that can be experienced in 10 minutes of stillness, students report feeling light and free as they float out of class. I hope the following three benefits will encourage you to experience the magic of Savasana for yourself!
1. Holding space
Our mind is not only processing the physical sensations occurring in each moment of our busy days, but it is using those and past experiences to plan future busy days. It is no wonder that 10 whole minutes without any distraction from this process feels overwhelming! But those 10 minutes of space and low stimulation allows a deeper mind-body (or psycho-somatic) connection.
With an average of 70,000 thoughts per day, Savasana allows us time to practise sitting with and observing our mind without being overwhelmed, and maybe even finding moments of silence. Some students find so much silence they fall asleep!
2. Getting in Touch With Your Nervous System
Have you ever felt anxious, and had someone tell you to ‘just’ breathe? While this well meaning advice has some truth to it, breathing slowly in the middle of a stress response can increase anxiety if the body is not used to it.
The stress response (sympathetic nervous system), doesn’t quite deserve the bad rep, it gets us out of bed and through our workout. It is the gas pedal of a car, but problems arise when we don’t have easy access to the brake (parasympathetic nervous system).
Savasana helps us balance the nervous system, and some yoga classes are designed to use up that stress energy to give easier access to the resting side of the nervous system. Savasana can be a powerful tool in your mental health arsenal, as you familiarise your body with manually switching to a calming state.
3. The Body Benefits Too!
Giving yourself deliberate time in the calming nervous system is restorative for the body as well as the mind. Through balancing the nervous system, Savasana has been shown to help:
- Digestion
- Reduce tension
- Lower cortisol levels (a hormone involved in stress responses
- Improve sleep levels
In reality, these claims boil down to this: some of your body’s natural processes, like digestion, slow down with too much stress (sympathetic activation). So by taking time in Savasana, the light goes green on those processes again.
So you may be one of the many students that struggle through your first few Savasanas, but I hope these benefits will help you endure through the initial discomfort into a practice that leaves you feeling as though you’ve levitated off your mat.
