This entry was posted on Jun 25, 2025 by Charlotte Bell.
Savasana (Rest Pose) is a welcome respite, the well-deserved dessert after your asana apply. It’s a time of relaxation and integration, the time once you get to lie nonetheless and take up the advantages of your asana apply.
However for some individuals, it’s really not so enjoyable. I typically see college students lie down onto the ground, solely to start fidgeting, bending their knees, inserting a roll underneath the decrease backbone, and so forth. That’s once I know they want assist, not underneath their backs, however as an alternative, underneath their decrease legs. After I place assist underneath their legs, again ache aid is sort of all the time instantaneous.
Why Does Assist Below the Legs Relieve Again Pressure?
When your legs are stretched out on the ground, the hip flexors stretch. When shortened hip flexors stretch passively, as in Savasana, the low again is pulled into hyperextension. That’s the place again discomfort comes from. Shortened hip flexors are fairly widespread in our tradition. Due to our pervasive cultural behavior of marathon chair sitting, many individuals find yourself with shortened hip flexors. It is because sitting places all our joints right into a flexed place. Over time, the muscular tissues shorten.
That’s one purpose why asana apply is so essential. There are many poses that counteract our habitually flexed joints. Whereas we’re doing lively apply, we count on to really feel stretching sensation. It’s a part of the method. So stretching sensation within the hip flexors, together with low again extension, simply feels regular in most poses. It’s normally not till we lie passively in Savasana that we really really feel our power hip flexor tightness—within the low again.
Savasana is best once we’re capable of chill out utterly. If we’re feeling fidgety and uncomfortable our nervous programs will proceed to really feel agitated. We gained’t really feel the quiet sense of ease that’s the hallmark of a deep Savasana. The excellent news is that aid is straightforward to search out.
Stonehenge: Again Ache Reduction in Savasana—And Extra
There are many methods to assist the legs in Savasana. In Hugger Mugger’s weblog, you’ll discover plenty of articles detailing choices for bolstering the legs. These choices contain utilizing Customary, Spherical, Junior and Pranayama yoga bolsters, and mixtures of those. I discovered Stonehenge a few years in the past at a Restorative Yoga instructor coaching with Judith Hanson Lasater. A number of of my college students discover that Stonehenge is the simplest solution to discover again ache aid in Savasana, and so they set themselves up this manner in each class.
Stonehenge has some traits of a really gentle inversion. The pose could be a good substitute for poses equivalent to Viparita Karani (Legs Up the Wall) and even Salamba Sarvangasana (Shoulderstand) for individuals for whom full inversions are contraindicated. This contains individuals with unregulated hypertension, indifferent retina, heavy menstrual circulation or glaucoma. So as an alternative of merely setting these individuals up in the usual go-to, Balasana (Little one’s Pose), set them up in Stonehenge, which can give them among the advantages of inverting with out the dangers.
Set Up Stonehenge
- Collect your props: a yoga mat, two 4-inch yoga blocks and a Customary Yoga Bolster. Don’t use 3-inch yoga blocks for this pose. They’re extra prone to tip over than the broader 4-inch blocks.
- Set your blocks up, of their tallest dimension, on the foot finish of your mat. Set them up in order that they’re about hips-width aside. This width is essential due to the blocks are too shut collectively, the burden of your legs could trigger the bolster to sag down on both facet, which may destabilize the blocks. The identical is true if the blocks are too far aside; the bolster could sag down within the center. So that you need the blocks to be proper under your legs for the most effective assist.
- Lay your bolster widthwise on prime of your blocks, in order that it’s oriented crosswise in your mat.
- Lie down in your mat together with your knees bent and the soles of your toes on the ground. Bend your knees in towards your chest after which place your calves on the bolster. You could want to regulate your hips towards or away from the bolster to search out your most comfy place.
- Calm down and luxuriate in.
About Charlotte Bell
Charlotte Bell found yoga in 1982 and commenced instructing in 1986. Charlotte is the writer of Aware Yoga, Aware Life: A Information for On a regular basis Observe and Yoga for Meditators, each printed by Rodmell Press. Her third guide is titled Hip-Wholesome Asana: The Yoga Practitioner’s Information to Defending the Hips and Avoiding SI Joint Ache (Shambhala Publications). She writes a month-to-month column for CATALYST Journal and serves as editor for Yoga U On-line. Charlotte is a founding board member for GreenTREE Yoga, a non-profit that brings yoga to underserved populations. A lifelong musician, Charlotte performs oboe and English horn within the Salt Lake Symphony and people sextet Pink Rock Rondo, whose DVD gained two Emmy awards.