Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Foreign hello and welcome to Deep in your Yoga Practice. I am your host, Lauren Leduc, the owner and founder of True Love Yoga in Kansas City, Missouri. And today I get to talk about one of my favorite yoga poses, one that is often misunderstood, maybe slightly mysterious, but hopefully always included in a yoga practice, which is Shavasana or corpse pose. What is it? Is it just lying down? Is it taking a little nap? Why do we do this practice at the end of every yoga session? What does it mean? Like I said, it can be somewhat mysterious. And I've had a lot of beautiful and deep questions from students about Shavasana. Sometimes they're what should I be doing? What should I be doing with my mind? How should I be laying?
[00:01:04] There's a lot of how should I be doing this? And today I would like to demystify that a little bit, let you know why we do this from a physical, philosophical, and even neuroscience standpoint, and hopefully help you deepen your appreciation for this practice. So don't skip Shavasana. It is a vital and important part of your asana or yoga practice. And today I'll tell you why. So you might not believe this, but sometimes I have yoga stress dreams. I think every career comes with stress dreams in one way or the other. And there are a couple things that usually happen while I'm teaching yoga in my dreams, but one of them is that everyone starts leaving during, during or before Shavasana. And it makes me very, very upset in the dream, which I think is hilarious. And of course, it's a student's choice whether or not they're going to practice shavasana. But I know that there's something deep down inside me that just knows how profound and important this particular posture is. And it really is my wish that it is incorporated into every asana practice and that it because becomes something for people that they can hold with a lot of reverence and respect. So I'd love for you today to reconsider Savasana as a really crucial part of your practice. It's not just something we tack on at the end, but it's something that helps us get to the essence of what yoga is. So what is savasana? It is a Sanskrit word meaning corpse pose. So shava is corpse. Asana is posture or pose. And you're meant to lie there truly like a corpse. But it is symbolic of death, more specifically, of letting go and of surrender and of opportunity for rebirth. Because in the system of yoga, it's not over at death. Death is part of a wheel that keeps turning of birth, of sustaining life, of death, and then, of course, of rebirth. So it's this period of pause before the rebirth. It is traditionally placed at the end of an asana, or physical yoga practice, to allow for a sense of assimilation and restoration. So you can think of it as sleep at the end of the day. So we need this sleep to restore our bodies and our minds, to consolidate everything that had happened that day and to prepare us for a new day. So super similar with Shavasana. Very traditionally, Shavasana would be lying on your back with your arms outstretched next to your sides, palms up, your legs out in front of you. Feet fall apart, and you're simply lying there. But it can be explored with a lot of different options these days. For instance, people who are pregnant at a certain point probably don't want to lay on their backs like that, so they can lay on their sides. Some students like to place their hands somewhere on their body. Some people like to place props under their head or under their knees, or cover with blankets or cover their eyes with an eye pillow. All of that, for me, is completely fine. It isn't necessarily about the posture itself and mimicking a body or something like that. It's more about getting to the essence of what the posture is for, which we'll get into. So whatever helps you feel most comfortable to get to that space is whatever your Shavasana is meant to be that day. So again, from an energetic standpoint, we're using Shavasana as an opportunity to let go of ego, to let go of the effort from our practice, to move from a space of doing into a space of being. We're opening ourselves to pure presence, cosmic awareness, perhaps. And in that vein, Savasana is often linked to Samadhi, which is the eighth limb of the eight limbs of yoga, which I talk about in a different episode. But it's about union with the divine. It's about liberation. It's about truly being oneself. Who are we when we let go of identity, when we let go of doing? And we're just simply being. So Shavasana is very philosophically important in yoga for a few different reasons. One is it supports one of the limbs of yoga called pratyahara, which is sense withdrawal. So drawing your senses in inward, it's not necessarily about cutting off all of your senses, because in Shavasana, yes, you can still hear even if your eyes are closed. You might see the light behind your eyes. There's still some sensory experience, but it's like we're turning the volume down on that and bringing our awareness to the inside. And pratyahara is one of the bridges from physical movement and breath to focus and to meditation. So you can consider shavasana in pratyahara, this bridge to meditation, inviting in stillness and witnessing. So we go from movement, building heat to letting go in Shavasana, which prepares us perhaps for a nice session of meditation or if time is limited, to bring us to a more mindful space to carry out the rest of our day. Savasana also ties into santosha, which is one of the niyamas, one of the second limbs of yoga, which means contentment. So santosha is contentment. Once we're in Shavasana, we're not really looking to change things. We're not looking to optimize it, to make it better, to criticize it. It simply is. So the more we can relax into it and accept the present moment, the more we're going to get out of this philosophically and energetically. And it also ties to another niyama, which is Ishvara pranidana, which means surrender to the divine. And that can be the divine, however you personally define it. It might mean the present moment, it might mean God in some way, again, whatever it your relationship is with that. But it's really letting go of control completely and allowing things to simply be, which helps us connect more with what is around us. So it's interesting. We draw our senses inward, but in that quiet in that space that we find, we often find this beautiful sense of connectivity, maybe even with everyone, everything, maybe with the earth, the universe, again, the divine, however you define it in yogic philosophy, this posture reflects this death of the small self and rebirth of consciousness. So what do I mean by that? My yoga teacher trainees maybe have heard me say, the little S self and the big S self. And you might imagine there are some jokes around that. But the little S self typically refers to our ego. It's the stories we tell ourselves about who we are.
[00:08:05] It's the things that we cling to, sometimes things that aren't true. It's the part of us that is constantly changing. And the big S self is our soul, essentially. It's the part of us that never changes. It's our consciousness, it's our inner wisdom and knowing. So shavasana gives us a chance to quiet the noise, maybe to put that little a self to sleep for a little bit and to feel this rebirth of cosmic consciousness, of the big S self, of the soul, of our truth. So that's pretty profound. Savasana, I think, is this radical act in a culture obsessed with doing. So we stop, we lay down, we do nothing, even just for a few minutes before we get up and do the next thing. So how cool is it that you can practice resistance simply by laying on your back and relaxing? Pretty nice. It seems like modern science is always catching up with what yogis have known for hundreds, if not thousands of years. And there is some pretty cool new research that backs up the value of savasana and a yoga practice. And honestly makes me want to use savasana in every movement practice that I have because it seems so valuable. So there was a study done in 2019 where researchers at the National Institutes of Health conducted a study on skill consolidation and rest. So essentially, participants learned a new motor skill or a new physical skill, and then they were split into two groups so they learned this skill. One group rested quietly afterward and the other moved on right to another task. So the group that rested showed significantly better retention and integration of the skill when tested later. And I'll repeat that the group that rested showed significantly better retention and integration of the skill when tested later. So what this shows is that quiet rest after effort helps the brain solidify new learning. So quiet rest after effort helps the brain solidify new learning. There is the default mode network, or dmn, in the brain that becomes active during this period of rest. And this part of the brain is responsible for reflection, memory consolidation, and internal processing. So it is doing all of this work while it feels as though you're doing nothing. So as you're laying in Shavasana, for instance, you don't need to mentally go over the physical skills that you learned during the practice. The cool thing is, is that your brain is doing that automatically. Really all it requires is a sense of trust that this is happening. So really cool research study. The application to yoga is after asana, which is physical movement, oftentimes where teachers are helping you apply new skills, new insights, new approaches. After this happens, the nervous system is primed, and then Shavasana creates space for the body, brain and spirit to integrate everything that you experienced. Like I said earlier, Shavasana to me is really similar to going to bed after a full a full day, right? Your brain and your body automatically go through these processes that consolidate and organize and integrate all of the information that you took in into your being into your nervous system. So rest becomes an essential part of what we called embodied neuroplasticity. So this ability for the brain to change and to learn and to grow and for that to carry out through your entire body through these different physical skills. So yogis knew this thousands of years ago. And again, science is just catching up. So I found that really, really interesting. And I always love when some sort of research study comes out with proof of these concepts as yogis that we've gotten to experience already due to the benefit of millennia of practice and work. So it's really quite interesting and it gives us even more reason to observe this pause at the end of the practice. So there are a few benefits of Shavasana besides this consolidation in the physical. It helps decrease your. It lowers blood pressure and it helps release muscular tension. I always tell my students it is just as important to learn how to relax as it is to contract or to move. We need our bodies to be able to do both things to function in an optimal state of health. Mentally, it helps calm the mind, it reduces anxiety, and it strengthens focus emotionally. Shavasana offers us space to process, reflect and connect with self. You certainly don't have to do that during Shavasana, but it's absolutely okay if that is what your mind and body want to do while you're in that space. Neurologically, it supports your parasympathetic nervous system, which is resting and digesting and skill consolidation, as we spoke about earlier and energetically, it creates stillness and harmony and prepares us for meditation. So, so many awesome benefits. Before we close up, I'll give a couple tips for a meaningful Shavasana. If you're at home, make it as cozy as possible. I mean, you can do that in a yoga space as well, but at home you might have more of your thickens, right? Like your blankets and candles and incense or whatever it is that that helps you feel cozy. But don't be afraid to grab an eye pillow to put over your eyes to help promote pratyahara or that sense withdrawal. Maybe you're putting a blanket over your body to make your body temperature feel nice and cozy. Maybe you're using a bolster under your knees. If Shavasana can feel not so great on your low back. Or maybe you have a block or bolster under the head. Maybe you're lying on your side if that feels better, or even on your belly sometimes. So give yourself a chance to kind of play with your ideal Shavasana, but not so much that it takes away from all of your Shavasana time. Stay aware and alert. So you can let your body rest, but your mind might stay somewhat observant. It might observe the beat of your heart it might observe the music or the smells. That's okay. I'll say that that's one thing to try, but it's also okay to just let your mind wander and your brain is still going to go through all of those amazing natural processes. Oftentimes in a yoga class, we only have a few minutes to offer for Shavasana because we just have so many components that we'd like to offer to make a complete practice in an hour or 75 minutes, or however much time as teachers that we have. But if you're able to try extending your Savasana beyond three to five minutes and notice what happens when you give yourself more space, you might even practice Shavasana sometimes when you're not doing asana. So maybe it's a form of meditation you can take before bedtime where you're laying. Maybe you're systematically relaxing different muscles in your body and allowing yourself the space to just be. There's not even really any pressure to fall asleep. It's just about being. And lastly, I would say just let it be imperfect. Rest is rest even when the mind is busy. So really just let it be what it is and know that you're still receiving so many beautiful benefits from it. And that's the acceptance piece, the. The sentosha, really just allowing it to be whatever it is that day. So to close, I do want to reiterate that Shavasana is not really optional for an asana practice. It is super important. It is this practice of integration, of being, of returning back to your center. And I really encourage you to embrace it as sacred, as important as a vital piece of your yoga practice.
[00:16:06] If you'd like a little bit of a prompt to continue reflecting on this, ask yourself this. What happens when I give myself full permission to rest? What happens when I give myself full permission to rest? And then one more question. What does stillness reveal to me? What does stillness reveal to me? So I have a call to action for you, which is try extending your Shavasana a bit this week and see how it feels, maybe reflect on those prompts. And I also want to remind you that I created this beautiful yoga practice journal. You can get it at the studio at True Love Yoga, but it's also available online, right? You can take time after Shavasana, after you close your practice to integrate and reflect and to continue creating sacred space for this practice of yoga. Thank you all so much for listening today. Happy Savasana in Om Shanti Om. Peace.
