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The rabbit pose, also known as Shashankasana in Sanskrit, draws inspiration from the way a Rabbit lowers its head on the ground. Rabbits are animals that are known for their quickness, alertness, agility and flexibility, which enables them to move and survive in different environmental spaces.
Shashankasana is an ancient yoga technique that allows the practitioner to embody the qualities of rabbits and let them connect their inner selves, deeply with nature.
Practicing the rabbit pose is an excellent way to clean out emotional blockages and mental clutter. Additionally, also being a great alternative to the camel pose, the rabbit pose helps strengthen your spine by lengthening the space between the vertebrates.
In this article, we will tell you all the health benefits of practising the rabbit pose.
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Major Benefits Of Rabbit Pose
Here are some of the major health benefits that you will gain if you start practising rabbit pose consistently.
1) Strengthens Spine Flexibility
Sitting with a hunched back for long hours during desk work can often make our spine stiffer with time. The rabbit pose not only releases this stiffness but also strengthens the spine, improves flexibility and reduces the risk of future injuries.
2) Improves Heart Function
Practicing Shashankasana in a balanced way every day becomes an excellent way to improve your heart health. It allows you to respire through your solar plexus, easing down the tension between the veins and arteries, and improving heart function and health.
3) Improves Mental Well-Being
Practising rabbit pose regularly leads to improved mental health. This asana has shown significant benefits in improving mood while helping to manage anxiety and reduce fear and phobias. It provides you with mental peace by releasing stress, allowing you to concentrate on your work with more focus.
As this pose requires us to bend forward, it releases all psychological tensions and helps us let go of anger and resentment, providing calmness of mind.
4) Improves Digestion
Since we bend forward to do this asana, our abdomen gets compressed, which in turn helps in the secretion of digestive juices in the stomach. It stimulates our digestive organs like the liver, intestines and stomach, which eliminates waste and toxins from the food, leading to clean digestion.
5) Improves Respiratory Health
While doing the rabbit pose, we bend forward which stimulates our abdomen and stretches our back. In this process, we respire through your solar plexus, which eases the tension between the veins and arteries. This improves our lung capacity, which improves our overall respiratory health. Additionally, it strengthens our throat and is beneficial for the thyroid and parathyroid glands.
How To Do The Rabbit Pose
Follow the following steps to do the rabbit pose properly:
Step 1: At the beginning sit in the Vajrasana position, by sitting on the butt of your heels. Ensure that your ankles, thighs, and knees are aligned. Now spread your knees while making sure your big toes touch each other.
Step 2: Grab your heels with your hands facing outward, with your thumb on the edges on the outside edges of your feet, and your feet on the inside arches.
Step 3: Slowly lift the navel inward and upward toward the spine to activate the core.
Step 4: As you slowly bend your back and stretch your spine, the forehead should be in contact with your knees while the head's crown should touch the ground. The chin should be tucked into the chest.
Step 5: Now as you slowly roll forward, stretch your spine completely, raise your hips and butt off your heels until your arms are completely straight and touching your heels.
Step 6: Maintain this position for a duration that suits your comfort, then slowly release the pose and return to your initial position. Repeat.
What To Avoid
Rabbit pose is excellent for increasing flexibility, strengthening your spine, increasing blood flow, improving heart function, and providing numerous additional health benefits. However, people who suffer from knee, neck, or shoulder pain and injuries need to be very careful.
Pregnant women should also avoid doing this pose as it involves mild inversion and may put extra pressure on your lower abdomen, or make you feel dizzy and nauseated. This is an advanced stretching exercise and should not be done directly without proper stretching.
The rabbit pose looks very simple but some may face discomfort while doing this exercise. Individuals may face neck and back pain, compression on the spine, discomfort on knees, and hip joint stretch, especially if they are suffering from injuries. One might even feel difficulty breathing and hence, this asana should be executed with proper care and supervision from the very beginning.
People can do this asana as per their personal preference, style of living and health concerns. However, this yoga should not be done after eating on a full stomach. Some people may do it as an energising way to start their day while others can do it to relieve the day's stress in the evenings.
It is an excellent way to stretch your body, calm your mind, and give deeper levels of consciousness to one's self and the world around you, enabling one to approach things and come out with wise decisions.
