“It was boring and waiting for it to end.” A personal story about falling in love with shavasana

No matter where and how you practice yoga – in a fitness center, a special studio, a real Indian ashram or at home using YouTube videos – at the end of the practice you will be asked to do shavasana. It is also called corpse pose, and the point of this exercise is to relax after a workout. Some people manage to do it with ease, but for others the end of the practice becomes a real challenge. Our heroine told us how she understood the true meaning of shavasana and why it is now one of her favorite parts of the exercise.

First experience

Tatiana Zhdanova

Public Relations Manager of the MoyOffice software developer company

I became interested in yoga while I was still studying at university, that is, around 2014. It was one of the options for physical education, I started going, and I liked it very much. So much so that I started practicing additionally at home, and in the summer I went to the park to practice different asanas and exercises from classes in the fresh air.

In all the classes I stubbornly ignored shavasana – asana, which is usually the end of any practice. It is a very simple looking exercise: close your eyes and lie on your back with your legs slightly apart and your hands with palms facing upwards and breathe. And I didn’t understand at all why. What am I supposed to feel? What would it bring me? I thought it was just part of relaxing after a workout, but you can relax sitting down. Why do you have to lie down to do it and why do you have to close your eyes?

During the first shavasanas I just lay there, thinking about something of my own and waiting for it to end. I wanted to scrunch up my face, squirm, open my eyes. Sometimes I would do that and stare at the ceiling. All in all, it was very boring. I’m sure these feelings are familiar to many people.

Later, when yoga became a part of my life and I made up my own practice, I often ignored breathing exercises and shavasana. I liked complex asanas, in which you had to find balance, build the body. But lying down, breathing and meditating was not interesting to me, so I simply eliminated that part.

At the same time I often heard that shavasana, despite its apparent simplicity, is one of the most difficult poses in yoga. It requires a combination of mental and physical effort. I had no desire to make any effort. I just didn’t see the point.

First successful practice

It was like that until the summer of 2022, but then everything changed. At work I got an opportunity to attend yoga classes in one of the coolest studios in Moscow. At the first class, everything somehow came together at once. I liked both the studio itself with a pleasant atmosphere, setting me up for relaxation, and the training, and the instructor. The lights were dimmed in the room, calm music was played, incense with an unobtrusive odor was lit. It was warm, it was easy and pleasant to do asanas. The teacher gently guided, prompted, took care of everyone. All in all, a wonderful experience.

I really liked the main part of the practice, I felt my body, muscles, how they stretch and work. And at the end the instructor, of course, suggested to do shavasana, but before that to breathe a little. After a couple of breathing exercises, which helped to relax and relieve tension in the muscles, we lay down and covered ourselves with plaids, so as not to freeze.

I’ve been cold in shavasana before. I didn’t cover myself with anything, so my hands and feet got cold and I wanted to move them. But here we were wrapped in soft plaids and the instructor said: “Now close your eyes and try to connect your gaze at the point above your nose, on the bridge of your nose, between your eyebrows. Bring your eyes straight down to that point and lie there.”

That’s what I did. My body felt cozy and warm under the plaid. The music was a little louder and the instructor was calmly telling me which areas to relax. If you have ever tried to do shavasana on video lessons, you know how they usually say: relax your forehead, relax your cheeks. All this is said slowly, the wave of relaxation goes from bottom to top, from toes to top.

In general, I was lying down, listening to the instructor, doing everything one by one, leading this wave through my body. When it became quiet, I continued lying down and at some point I felt total relaxation. Suddenly it seemed as if I didn’t feel my body at all, so light and weightless it became. It was as if my consciousness had separated and was floating above my physical shell. I know it sounds very strange, but that’s what I felt for the first time. I felt the depth of shavasana and its effect.

Another very important moment is the correct exit from shavasana. That first time I was in such complete relaxation that it seems that if something had fallen suddenly or someone had hit me, I would have had a heart attack. So it’s very important to come out of shavasana gently. Gently and gradually. Our instructor began to quietly say, “Take a deep breath. Come back into your body. Feel your arms, your legs…”. Basically, she began to bring us back from a state of absolute weightlessness to this world. Afterwards she suggested that those who were ready to open their eyes, turn over on their side and lie down some more. Gradually everyone gently came out of the asana – and the practice was over.

Then I felt great gratitude to everything around me at that moment. It was a very pleasant feeling of rebooting. It was like I had gotten a good night’s sleep, but I was conscious the whole time. I think I was truly rested in that moment. And that was just the beginning.

The first rule of shavasana

How long did it take for shavasana to fully unfold for me? It’s hard to say. After all, the first time I tried this asana was back in 2014, and I really felt it only after attending yoga practices from work. Probably, if I had tried practicing it in that interval, looking for my approach, it would have worked out sooner. But no one explained to me how to do it.

I will say at once that in my subsequent practices I did not always succeed in repeating the state I described above. Gradually I realized that the success of asana strongly depends on the mood with which I start the practice. If I am nervous and I can’t get in tune with my body, if I can’t get my thoughts out of my head, then shavasana won’t work, even now that I understand how to enter it correctly. For the experience to be successful, I need to be in the here and now.

I highly recommend everyone to find their own guide to help you dive into shavasana correctly. Because the feeling of total relaxation, I’m sure, is something we all miss in our daily lives. And the ability to enter it is truly invaluable.

How to enter shavasana correctly: 5 tips from a yoga instructor

hatha yoga instructor

Shavasana seems like a simpler pose than it is. The body can be very distracting, turning this exercise into something of an ordeal, accompanied by cold, discomfort and itching. This is why it is performed at the end of the exercise to get rid of the discomfort. It is quite normal if the head resists deep relaxation. Shavasana is the end of the class, the moment to surrender, it teaches you not to fight the clock and to create peace and harmony in your soul.

1. Set yourself up for success. Stretch out on your mat and make sure you are completely comfortable. The more comfortable you are, the better you can relax and release your thoughts.
2. Take one final cleansing breath. The cleansing breath will send a signal to the parasympathetic nervous system that it is safe to relax and it is okay to just be yourself.
3. Examine yourself for tension. Mentally check all parts of your body and try to relax them as much as possible.
4. Feel the peace and ease, just trust your breathing. Catch peaceful moments of silence between thoughts.
5. Tune in. Before you come out of shavasana, try to mentally capture your sensations at each level. Concentrate on feeling more rested, alert and alive than you were before practicing.

If you practice calmness and surrender on your mat, it’s easier to do in real life. This is exactly what yoga is worth practicing for.