Don’t Skip Savasana!

By Anne Ketter, RYT 200

Before quarantine, my favorite part of every yoga class was savasana. Often it was all I could focus on throughout class: At the end, I get savasana. And if I’m lucky, the instructor will press my shoulders down, assisting me in relaxing and grounding.

Pratyahara is the fifth limb of yoga and is defined as "the conscious withdrawal of energy from the senses.” While we don’t talk so much about pratyahara, we practice it by experiencing our senses without being engaged with them, most often by focusing on the breath during savasana.

Now, I find myself skipping it--savasana--moving on to make dinner, walk the dog, get back to work, stay moving. I'm discovering it takes practice and intention, especially in this challenging time, to detach and relax.

I’m having a similar problem getting myself to turn off the computer and stop working at the end of the work day. My office is my dining room. It’s so close! I’m grateful to have my job and my work is important in the work to fight Covid-19. It's hard to let go of the feeling of urgency.

In this time of stress, quarantine, illness, and death it’s easy to feel restless and want to keep moving. Moving makes us feel like we actually have some measure of control in this new pandemic life we all lead. If we keep moving, we don’t have to sit with the fear and loneliness. We can practice pratyahara by paying attention to this need to escape our thoughts and feelings by seeking action.

Instead, as the weeks go by, now is the time to slow down, honor our need for rest, feel the solid guarantee of the earth, and quiet the mind. These are the keys to maintaining sanity in the face of a pandemic: breathe, rest, feel the earth beneath you. Practice pratyahara and don’t skip savasana.

Anne Ketter did her 200 hour yoga teacher training at Yoga Heights. She works at the NIH in the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) at the National Library of Medicine.