Yes, you read right. The posture on the photos below is known to be the most important posture in yoga. Fantastic, right?
Depending on how much you know about yoga, you probably thought the headstands, splits and tough core exercises were most beneficial, but I'm afraid it's not. Savasana, direct translation being corpse pose, is a posture anyone can do and as it helps you relax, I'd definitely say it's the most important one.
Relaxation is nature's way of recharging the body, but savasana is a posture where you actively focus on your body and releasing tension, so lying on the sofa and watching tv flat out doesn't count. In savasana you should actively focus on how your body feel, where you feel tension, what muscles you cannot relax and the biggest challenge, relax your mind.
During my first year of teaching, I was surprised to see that even though in some classes we did a lot of cool and crazy postures, it was the 15-minute long relaxation in savasana at the end of class that some people found the most challenging. Because how often during a day do you truly do nothing? Even when attempting to rest, the average person expends a lot of physical and mental energy through tension and thought. I know it's hard to "turn off" the brain. "What should I eat for dinner?","Am I concentrating hard enough?" and "Was Ned Stark actually a good swordsman?" are all normal thoughts, so don't beat yourself up for not being able to "not think". Starting by acknowledging your thought patterns is the first step. Accept that your mind wondered and return to to your focus.
Tension is who you think you should be.
Relaxation is who you are.
Chinese proverb
No one teaches you how to relax. Exams, work, modern life and peer pressure teach us the opposite: to stress and to worry about what other thinks of us. It took me two hip operations before I realised that hey, you know what, relaxing my body and my mind is kind of important! If you never take time for yourself to turn off wifi and just zone out, I suggest that you do just that. And there's no time like the present!
Lie on your back, feet at least 1/2 meter a part and arms slightly away from your body, palms facing the ceiling (or sky if the weather is nice enough to be outside). This is literally all you have to do physically, seems pretty easy, right ? While you lie here focus on breathing into your abdomen and not letting the chest rise as you breathe in. Do a slow body scan, focus firstly on your feet. How are they feeling? Then move upwards to your calves, are they tensing? Do this to your entire body and simply observe how you're feeling, you might learn something new about yourself.
If you can, lie in this asana (posture) for 15 minutes, do it. It's not even the length of a sitcom episode, but a lot more rewarding.
Happy relaxing!
