Downward – Facing Dog Pose

Sanskrit Name: Adho Mukha Svanasana

Good for: Energy, stress, shoulders, hamstrings, calves, arches, menopause

Benefits

•     Provides peace of mind
•     Helpsalleviate stress
•     Good to treat mild depression
•     Provides energy and vigor to the body
•     Provides elasticity to the shoulders, hamstrings, calves, arches, and hands
•     Strengthens the arms and legs
•     Helps ease out the menopause symptoms
•     Alleviates menstrual discomposure when done with head supported
•     Helps prevent osteoporosis
•     Improves digestion
•     Relieves headache, insomnia, back pain, and fatigue
•     Great for controlling high blood pressure, asthma, flat feet, sciatica, sinusitis

 

 

 

 

 

 

Guidelines

•     Come onto the floor on your hands and knees
•     Set your knees directly below your hips and your hands slightly forward of your shoulders
•     Spread your palms, index fingers parallel or slightly turned out, and turn your toes under
•     Exhale and lift your knees away from the floor
•     At first keep the knees slightly bent and the heels lifted away from the floor
•     Lengthen your tailbone away from the back of your pelvis and press it lightly toward the pubis
•     Against this resistance, lift the sitting bones toward the ceiling, and from your inner ankles draw the inner legs up into the groins
•     With an exhalation, push your top thighs back and stretch your heels onto or down toward the floor
•     Straighten your knees but be sure not to lock them
•     Firm the outer thighs and roll the upper thighs inward slightly
•     Narrow the front of the pelvis
•     Firm the outer arms and press the bases of the index fingers actively into the floor
•     From these two points lift along your inner arms from the wrists to the tops of the shoulders
•     Firm your shoulder blades against your back, then widen them and draw them towards the tailbone
•     Keep the head between the upper arms and don’t let it hang
•     Stay in this pose anywhere from 1 to 3 minutes.
•     Bend your knees to the floor with an exhalation and rest in Child’s Pose

Good to know

•     If you have trouble freeing and opening your shoulders in this pose, raise your hands off the floor on a pair of blocks or the seat of a metal folding chair
•     Don’t do this pose if you have Carpal tunnel syndrome
•     Avoid doing this pose if you have diarrhea
•     Stop doing this pose in later stage of pregnancy
•     Place your head on a bolster or block, ears level between the arms if you have high blood pressure

By : Natural Health News

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