Health Benefits of Corpse Pose (Shavasana) – How to Do It & Precautions

Every exercise has some profound effect on your body. Whether you do sun salutations, cycling, or HIIT classes, it makes your heart beat faster, your lungs breathe in more air, and your body sweat more profusely. However, there is one such yoga pose known as Shavasana, which aims to provide relaxation to your body and mind. 

If you are curious to know more about the various health benefits of Shavasana and how you can perform it, read on to know more.

Shavasana is the Sanskrit name for an essential restorative asana. It is the final resting pose that individuals perform at the end of almost every yoga practice. This yoga brings its own type of rest, relaxation and calmness. The word comes from the Sanskrit words 'sava', which means corpse and 'asana', which means posture.

The following are the benefits of Shavasana individuals can get by regularly doing it:

1. Improves Mental Health

One of the advantages of Shavasana is it allows you to focus on your breathing and helps you relax your body. This will help you increase your overall mindfulness and mental health.

2. Improves Memory

Shavasana helps in improving memory and will help you concentrate better. You will be able to focus and also be able to recall things better. Practising Shavasana is essentially important for students and older people.

3. Lowers Blood Pressure

This asana is highly beneficial for people with hypertension, as it helps lower blood pressure by relaxing the body, which drops the heart rate.

4. Helps Relieve Insomnia

Most individuals find that Shavasana helps provide a restful and good night's sleep. People having insomnia but do not want medications can try this pose.

5. Helps in Relaxing the Body

The main objective of the Shavasana pose is to help the body to unwind and relax. Therefore, individuals need to end their high-intensity workout with this pose as it works as a buffer between their workout routine and daily life.

6. Impacts Nervous System

The corpse pose benefits your nervous system by activating the parasympathetic nervous system.

7. Aligns Your Mind

One spiritual benefit that Shavasana provides your body is that it helps in aligning your mind with your body's energies. Therefore, this pose makes you aware of the energies surrounding you because your mind and body should ideally align with the universe.

Other Benefits:

• Beneficial for kids
• Helps improve breathing
• Helps improve hair and skin

You need to follow the steps below to perform this super easy yoga pose: 

Step 1: Lay down on your back, either on the floor or on your yoga mat. This is the basic meditation pose in Shavasana and ensures that you are not disturbed for the next 15 minutes after lying down.

Step 2: Close your eyes gently.

Step 3: Relax and place your feet at a comfortable distance apart.

Step 4: In the next step, you need to keep your arms straight along your body. Keep your palms facing up while keeping your arms slightly away from your torso.

Step 5: Keep all your focus on your toes and observe them. While doing it, take deep breaths through your nose and exhale slowly. 

Step 6: Continue deep breathing while slowly shifting your attention from your toes to the top of your head.

Step 7: There will be chances that your mind will wander off. If so, bring it back gently to your body.

Step 8: Try to ensure that you do not fall asleep while performing this exercise.

Step 9: After about 10 to 12 minutes, you will start to feel relaxed, then slowly roll over to one side and sit up.

Step 10: Now, you can slowly open your eyes while turning your attention outwards.

Ideally, this is one of the easiest poses that one can try; however, performing it perfectly can be difficult for some. So, here are some tips that you need to keep in mind:

• Before trying it out by yourself, opt for expert assistance to gain its intended benefits.
• Individuals with neck, shoulder or lower back concerns can keep a pillow either under their knees or bellies.
• Ensure the place where you are performing Shavasana is clean and well-ventilated without any distractions.
• It is ideal to start slowly and build up steadily. Beginners can start off with a 10-minute session and then gradually increase the duration and frequency.
• If the room you are in is very cold, try to carry a blanket or wear a sweater before performing it. This is because it becomes very difficult to relax and focus when your body is cold.

The precautions that one needs to take while performing the corpse pose are:

• Try to avoid any movements while doing this yoga pose, as it can disturb practice and fuel distractions.
• Try to avoid doing this asana in a crowded or noisy and distracting environment.
• Keep your body warm while doing this yoga. 
• If possible, perform this yoga in a dark place while covering your eyes to avoid any kind of distraction. 
• The purpose of this yoga is to relax the mind and body after a high-intensity workout session. So, if anyone finds the workout was not enough for Shavasana, then the purpose will be defeated.
• On the other hand, if the body hurts too much for some reason, relaxing by taking the mind away from the body will be very difficult.
• If one is very distracted, one might find it hard to relax and push the body. However, this can cause even more irritation and headache.
• Individuals having severe acidity might find it uncomfortable to lie on their backs as their food pipe might cause irritation. 
• Although the ideal condition is that you should perform this yoga pose on a flat, hard surface, if you are someone with knee, neck or back pain, you should perform this with a cushion or pillow support.

Even though it is one of the simplest yoga poses, you might find it challenging to perform Shavasana, especially if you have pre-existing ailments. Thus, you can bring modifications to this pose by using props and make it more relaxing and comfortable:

• To provide better support for your back, you can raise your knees by placing a blanket or using a bolster below the knees. 
• Gather several blankets, bolsters for doing downward facing Shavasana. Keep a bolster under your belly and chest and support your forehead with a blanket or pillow. This will help you get some breathing space and you can then relax.

So, this is all about the health benefits of Shavasana and why our body needs it. Amidst the busy life most of us spend, we often push ourselves too hard and forget to relax and rejuvenate. In such situations, our bodies develop stress, causing severe anxiety. However, with regular exercise and a few minutes of Shavasana, we can help our bodies rejuvenate, relax, and keep stress away.