Savasana Isn’t Optional: Why Your Practice Needs the Pause
Explore why Savasana is an essential part of yoga practice, not just a closing pose. Learn how it supports your nervous system, integration, and overall healing.
Let’s talk about the pose most people think of as "just lying down."
Savasana, or Corpse Pose, is the final resting pose at the end of a yoga practice. And while it may look like the easiest shape of all, it often turns out to be the hardest—and the one we (or is it just me?) may skip when we’re in a rush.
But - Savasana isn’t optional.
Whether you practice for 10 minutes or 60, your body and mind need time to integrate what just happened. Movement, breath, emotion, awareness—all of it lands differently when you give yourself permission to pause.
Savasana is the exhale after effort. The landing after the journey. The quiet space where transformation settles in. Without it, we risk rushing past the very benefits we came to the mat for in the first place.
What Savasana Actually Does
Savasana might not raise your heart rate, tone your core, or show up on your fitness tracker—but it might be the most important part of your entire practice.
Here’s why:
1. It Allows Integration
Yoga isn’t just about the poses. It’s about what happens between them and after them. Savasana gives your nervous system the space to absorb the effects of your physical and energetic work. It’s where all the effort begins to settle in, where muscles soften, the mind unwinds, and healing starts to take shape.
2. It Shifts You from Doing to Being
We spend most of our lives in "go mode." Even on the mat, we can carry a subtle sense of striving. Savasana helps us move from sympathetic activation (fight/flight) into parasympathetic rest and digest. It’s a gentle invitation into the still, open field of being.
3. It Grounds the Practice in Stillness
The classical texts of yoga speak of pratyahara—the withdrawal of the senses—as a key step on the inward journey. Savasana invites this turning inward, even if just for a few minutes. It is the threshold between the outer world and the inner world, where we rest in awareness without needing to change a thing.
4. It Honors the Completion Cycle
When we skip Savasana, we skip the closing of the loop. We deny the body and mind the closure and stillness that tells them, “You’re safe now. You can rest.” Completion matters. It signals integration and helps us fully digest the practice we just experienced.
5. It Builds a Relationship with Stillness
Savasana is a mirror. If it feels uncomfortable, awkward, or too quiet—there’s something to learn there. Learning to rest without guilt, distraction, or an urge to get up and move on is a profound spiritual practice.
Why We Avoid It (And What That Says)
If you find yourself skipping Savasana or resisting stillness, you're not alone. It can be uncomfortable to lie still with no distraction, especially when we’re used to constant input. But that discomfort? It’s a signal. A sign that there’s something worth meeting there.
Stillness doesn’t mean nothing is happening. Quite the opposite. In Savasana, the body resets. The breath recalibrates. The mind begins to settle. This is a sacred part of the practice—and a mirror for how we rest in daily life.
In many ways, how we approach Savasana reflects how we approach rest in general. Are we able to let go of doing? Can we allow ourselves to be fully supported? Or do we resist even a moment of quiet?
Often, the reasons we avoid Savasana are the same reasons we avoid rest in life: fear of what might arise in silence, discomfort with stillness, or a belief that we must always be productive to be worthy. But yoga asks us to rewrite that story.
How to Make Savasana Work for You
Set a timer. Even 3 to 5 minutes is better than nothing.
Cover up. Let your body drop into comfort and safety with a blanket or eye pillow.
Use support. A bolster under the knees or a folded blanket under the head can help you settle.
Treat it like any other pose. Give it intention, attention, and respect.
Create a ritual. Light a candle. Play soft music. Make it feel sacred.
Let it be the reward. Not the afterthought. Not the thing you skip if time runs out.
Yoga without Savasana is like a story without an ending. It’s a meal without digestion. A practice without integration.
You move, you breathe, you build awareness—and then you rest. It’s in that rest that everything can settle into place. It’s in the pause that healing often happens.
So next time you roll up your mat early or feel tempted to skip that final pose, ask yourself: what am I rushing away from? What if rest was the reward and the practice?
Because in the end, Savasana isn’t just lying down. It’s letting go. It’s returning to yourself. It’s where the real yoga begins.