Learning Yoga for Health #3 : Sarwangasana

Sarwangasana

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Technique of execution

1. Leach on the folded quilt, so that the shoulder blades are on the edge of the blanket, and the head is already on the floor. Thus, the neck does not "break". Pull straight hands behind your head.

2. With an exhalation, raise your knees to your chest and roll, without the help of your hands, take your feet behind your head (Halasan).

3. Take your hands behind your back, rest on the floor with your elbows, and, helping yourself with your hands, give your body a vertical position.

4. Bend your legs in your lap and pull them up.

5. Stay in the pose for 2-3 minutes, eventually increasing the duration. Then return to Halasana, slowly lower your back on the floor - the vertebra behind the vertebrae, stretch out your legs and relax.

Tuning

• The body from the shoulders to the feet is perpendicular to the floor and stretched upwards.
• Stop together.
• Hips tend to "wrap themselves up" inside.
• The buttocks are tense, the coccyx is pulled inward to prevent the deflection in the lower back.
• Palms on the back, thumbs pointing to the sides, the rest to the spine.
• The shoulders are drawn further from the ears.
• Chin chest.
• The elbows are as close as possible to each other.

Subtleties

To protect the cervical vertebrae from squeezing, it is preferable not to push your back with your hands, as some textbooks require, but to clasp your hands and stretch your arms behind your back. Shoulders be picked up under the chest - so that there is a hollow between the shoulder blades. Even if you take this pose without liners from blankets, the spine will not touch the floor and experience pressure.

Correctly

Body weight - only on the shoulders!
If it's difficult to breathe, try to pull up your chest, and do not turn your neck and head to the side.

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Wrong

When Sarvangasana is performed, the throat should not be squeezed. Coughing, discomfort in the neck and head suggest that the weight of the body is placed on the neck (excessive compression of the cervical vertebrae from one side and overstretch on the other). In this case, pay more attention to Halasana, to restore the flexibility of the lumbar, thoracic, and then cervical spine.

• Do not put your feet apart.
• Do not bend your knees.

How to facilitate

To elbows do not move apart, you can fix them with a strap.
If the chest falls on the neck and is difficult to breathe, make a stack of two blankets, slightly shifting one relative to the other - to create an inclined support for the neck.

How to deepen

Lower your hands, twist your fingers and, turning the lock, rest them on the floor, supporting the trunk.
Perform one or more Sarvangasana Variations.

Effect

Sarvangasana - refers to the most important postures of yoga. It benefits the whole body (that's why it is called). In an inverted state, blood supply to the brain, eyes and facial skin improves. Venous blood under the influence of gravity without tension is carried to the heart for purification. Enriched with oxygen, blood enters the chest, helping with lung disease. The involuntary throat lock (Jalandhara Bandha) increases the blood flow to the thyroid and parathyroid glands, stimulating their work. Correct execution of Sarvangasana relieves headaches and runny nose and other colds, improves digestion and excretion processes, rejuvenates the genital organs, restores the heart muscle. Sarvangasana is considered the most effective exercise for relaxation and rejuvenation of nerves.

Indications

Asthma, runny nose, bronchitis, shortness of breath, anemia, weakened immunity, colitis, hemorrhoids, digestive disorders, intestinal ulcers, uterine displacement, menstrual irregularities in women and men in men, varicosity, as well as stress, insomnia, anxiety and fatigue, mental retardation in children. Propensity to hypertension and hypotension, increased excitability, abdominal pain.

Contraindications

High blood pressure, arteriosclerosis, cervical spine trauma, intervertebral disc displacement, neck or shoulder pain, otitis media, sinusitis, ophthalmia, severe headaches, menstruation, pregnancy, upset stomach, thyroid, heart, liver and spleen diseases.

Important: incorrect / untimely development of Sarvangasana leads to serious injuries to the cervical spine! Preferably a year or two (sometimes more) spend on the development and deepening of Halasana, until the cervicothoracic transition becomes more mobile.

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