This entry was posted on Jun 25, 2025 by Charlotte Bell.
Savasana (Leisure Pose) is a welcome respite, the well-deserved dessert after your asana observe. It’s a time of relaxation and integration, the time once you get to lie nonetheless and take up the advantages of your asana observe.
However for some folks, it’s truly not so enjoyable. I usually see college students lie down onto the ground, solely to start fidgeting, bending their knees, inserting a roll underneath the decrease backbone, and so on. That’s once I know they want assist, not underneath their backs, however as a substitute, underneath their decrease legs. After I place assist underneath their legs, again ache aid is sort of all the time instantaneous.
Why Does Assist Beneath 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 frequent in our tradition. Due to our pervasive cultural behavior of marathon chair sitting, many individuals find yourself with shortened hip flexors. It’s because sitting places all our joints right into a flexed place. Over time, the muscle groups shorten.
That’s one purpose why asana observe is so essential. There are many poses that counteract our habitually flexed joints. Whereas we’re doing energetic observe, we anticipate 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 truly really feel our continual hip flexor tightness—within the low again.
Savasana is best after we’re capable of calm down fully. If we’re feeling fidgety and uncomfortable our nervous methods 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 simple to seek 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 a lot of articles detailing choices for bolstering the legs. These choices contain utilizing Normal, 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 technique to discover again ache aid in Savasana, they usually set themselves up this fashion in each class.
Stonehenge has some traits of a really delicate inversion. The pose generally is a good substitute for poses akin to Viparita Karani (Legs Up the Wall) and even Salamba Sarvangasana (Shoulderstand) for folks for whom full inversions are contraindicated. This contains folks with unregulated hypertension, indifferent retina, heavy menstrual circulate or glaucoma. So as a substitute of merely setting these folks up in the usual go-to, Balasana (Youngster’s Pose), set them up in Stonehenge, which is able to give them a few of the advantages of inverting with out the dangers.
The way to Set Up Stonehenge
- Collect your props: a yoga mat, two 4-inch yoga blocks and a Normal 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 beneath your legs for one of the best 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 along with your knees bent and the soles of your ft on the ground. Bend your knees in towards your chest after which place your calves on the bolster. Chances are you’ll want to regulate your hips towards or away from the bolster to seek out your most comfy place.
- Chill out and revel in.
About Charlotte Bell
Charlotte Bell found yoga in 1982 and started instructing in 1986. Charlotte is the writer of Conscious Yoga, Conscious Life: A Information for On a regular basis Observe and Yoga for Meditators, each revealed 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 folks sextet Purple Rock Rondo, whose DVD gained two Emmy awards.
