Shavasana for hypertension

Once, a senior colleague started a Women’s Exercise Center in our office. After the office hours, all the women staff who were “interested” in abdominal work-outs were to meet in the common room for exercise. It was an enlivening but painful experience for some people including me. During those mornings we usually greeted each other with a convulsive smile and would involuntarily ask “how’s the pain today?” perhaps to ensure that the pain was not individual. While it helped a few ladies to lose their extra fat, it triggered the food cravings and hunger in some others. To every body’s amusement, my friend would sneak in to the nearby store and discretely relish bars of chocolate after her ‘abs’.

Our sessions would certainly begin with warm up exercises and would end with a relaxing Shavasana of 10 minutes, often guided by the Lady-trainer. Well, during the Shavasana session I would go in to a trance not discernible from sleep. Lying ‘dead’ thus on the cold tiles of the silent building brought a lot of peace and tranquility within.

As a child, I had seen Shavasana being practiced by my father and believed to be a joke. Only when I grew up did I know that it was a real Asana!

Generally practiced to remove strain, exertion and fatigue, Shavasana is said to be the best exercise for cardiac problems, hypertension and insomnia. Shavasana relaxes every muscle and nerve of the body and helps significantly in lowering high