I was teaching class last week and chuckled as my class heaved itself
out of Savasana (Relaxation Pose). It definitely brought up my desire to speak on the
purpose of Savasana, especially discussing how exiting Savasana is an
essential aspect to maintaining the essence of the pose. So, let’s look
at the purpose of Savasana on a purely physical level.
On a
physical level, yoga helps us release the nervous system and relax it,
at least a bit. The nervous system is our body’s way of communicating
to its various parts quickly. It controls our breathing, heart
activity, among many other things. For our purpose, the most important
responsibility of the nervous system is it controls the stress we feel
as well as our relaxation. In our society and culture, we rev our
nervous system at a high level. Using an analogy, it is quite similar
to revving a car engine. At times this “revving” is quite beneficial
because it helps us “take off” as soon as we hear a “go”. Most of the
time, though, it is an unnecessary action that slowly takes its toll
on our body. Unfortunately, it easily becomes a habit, especially when
we are exposed to as much as we are in our culture. We then begin to
think in a revved state and hold our body in a revved state, slowly
exhausting it.
When we do yoga, we begin to retrain the nervous
system. The brain and the spine are the core of the nervous system.
Yoga moves the spine around in all directions, freeing tight and frozen
muscles and bringing new awareness and life to the nerves. This
movement also helps retrain the body for new habits instead of the same
old ones. When we continue to hold the body in the old way, it
maintains the old thoughts. As we move the body in new ways, we begin
to introduce new ways of being.
Savasana gives us a time to let
the body integrate the new knowledge, the new way of being we learned
during our practice. Just as studying to take an exam gives you an
opportunity to review the knowledge you gained during a semester in
school, when we rob the body of that opportunity, it easily falls back
into its old way of being, the old habits, especially the nervous
system.
So, skipping Savasana is almost akin to not doing a
practice at all. Yoga will still help without it, but your time in
Savasana helps imprint the new way in your body.
So, now we
come back to where we began, what does hopping out of Savasana do? When
you hop up out of Savasana, you easily grip muscles that can rev the
nervous system again and cause the old habits to creep back in.
Instead, come out slowly. Begin by bending your knees to release your
lower back. Roll to one side and rest for a moment. Then, use your
upper hand to press you up, keeping your upper leg relaxed. Let your
head hang until you are sitting fully upright. Then lift your head.
Keeping your head low helps deactivate the stimulation of the nervous
system. Ahh…doesn’t that feel better?
