Corpse Pose
शवासन
Śavāsana — a beginner restorative pose that works the none — full release.
5–15MINUTES HELD
One line on the timetable. Corpse Pose is held 5–15 minutes, breathing as follows: uncontrolled — let the breath do whatever it does — and it takes its place inside 10 of the practices posted on this site.
SOURCE·YogaPath sequence data — stay times as taught·one breath ≈ 5 s at an even pace·REVIEWED JUL 2026
How to do Corpse Pose
Read all of it before starting, and read the cautions further down before starting at all.
Lie on your back and place a rolled blanket or a bolster under the knees so the lower back can settle.
Add a thinly folded blanket under the head so the chin sits slightly lower than the forehead.
Let the feet fall out to the sides and rest the arms a hand's width from the body, palms up.
Cover yourself with a blanket, since the body cools quickly when nothing is working.
Let the breath find its own rhythm and stay still for the whole hold.
Hold: 5–15 minutes. Breath: Uncontrolled — let the breath do whatever it does.
Muscles worked
Where the effort and the lengthening land. Primary groups do most of the work; secondary groups assist or are stretched.
What Corpse Pose does
Described mechanically — what the movement does to muscle and joint. Not a list of conditions it treats, because a pose does not treat conditions.
- Supports the whole skeleton on the floor so no muscle has to hold any joint in place.
- Removes the postural work of standing and sitting for a long, uninterrupted stretch of time.
- Gives a long supported hold with no muscular effort required of any part of the body.
Corpse Pose is one of 21 restorative poses in this library and one of 88 poses rated beginner. Supported, low-effort poses held long, where the point is to stop working rather than to work.
Who should skip Corpse Pose, or change it
- Pregnancy after the first trimester — lie on the left side with a pillow between the knees instead.
- Reflux or breathlessness lying flat: raise the whole upper body on a slanted stack of blankets.
- Low back discomfort that appears with the legs straight — keep the knees supported.
- A long flat-supine hold is simply not comfortable for everyone; a side-lying rest counts just as much.
General information only — not medical advice. Some asanas are unsuitable during pregnancy, injury or specific conditions. Learn from a qualified teacher and stop if anything hurts. If you are pregnant, recovering from surgery or managing any health condition, ask your doctor before starting a practice, and learn the pose itself from a qualified teacher who can see you move.
Common mistakes in Corpse Pose
What tends to go wrong, and the specific correction — not "engage your core".
MistakeStraight legs on a hard floor so the lower back stays arched and busy.
FixPut a bolster under the knees; the back settles immediately.
MistakeCutting the hold to two minutes because nothing seems to be happening.
FixSet a timer and stay; the settling happens in the second half.
How the energy figure on a yoga timetable is reached
- Nobody has measured a single asana in a metabolic cart, so no per-pose figure is published here — not by this site and not by anyone.
- The pose is matched to the nearest style of practice in the 2024 Adult Compendium of Physical Activities. Corpse Pose sits at code 02170, yoga, Nadisodhana (seated, quiet practice), 2 MET.
- That MET value is put through the standard ACSM relationship for a stated reference adult of 70 kg.
- The result is the cost of a practice of that kind for as long as you practise — not the cost of holding this one shape.
- Scale it to yourself: the relationship is linear in body mass, so multiply by your own weight in kilograms and divide by 70.
kcal/min = MET × 3.5 × kg ÷ 200
= 2 × 3.5 × 70 ÷ 200
= 2.45 kcal per minute
The same practice, hour by hour
Read it the way you would read a timetable: pick the length of session you actually sit down for, and that is the figure.
| Time practising | 10 min | 20 min | 30 min | 45 min | 60 min |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Calories | 25 | 49 | 74 | 110 | 147 |
SOURCE·2024 Adult Compendium of Physical Activities·code 02170 · 2 MET · 70 kg reference adult·REVIEWED JUL 2026
The whole activity dataset, including everything that is not yoga, is at BurnLab.
Asked before class
How do you do Corpse Pose?
Lie on your back and place a rolled blanket or a bolster under the knees so the lower back can settle. Add a thinly folded blanket under the head so the chin sits slightly lower than the forehead. Let the feet fall out to the sides and rest the arms a hand's width from the body, palms up. Cover yourself with a blanket, since the body cools quickly when nothing is working. Let the breath find its own rhythm and stay still for the whole hold. Hold for 5–15 minutes.
What does Corpse Pose work?
Primarily the none — full release, with the none — full release assisting or lengthening. In mechanical terms: supports the whole skeleton on the floor so no muscle has to hold any joint in place.
Who should not do Corpse Pose?
Pregnancy after the first trimester — lie on the left side with a pillow between the knees instead. Reflux or breathlessness lying flat: raise the whole upper body on a slanted stack of blankets. Low back discomfort that appears with the legs straight — keep the knees supported. A long flat-supine hold is simply not comfortable for everyone; a side-lying rest counts just as much. This is general information, not medical advice — if any of these apply to you, ask your doctor and learn the pose with a qualified teacher rather than from a page.
Is Corpse Pose suitable for beginners?
Yes. Corpse Pose is a beginner-level pose on this site, which means it is learnable in a first class and has a version that works for most bodies. The cautions above still apply.
How many calories does Corpse Pose burn?
The honest answer is that nobody has measured a single asana. The 2024 Adult Compendium of Physical Activities publishes MET values for styles of yoga, not for individual poses. Corpse Pose sits closest to Compendium code 02170, yoga, Nadisodhana (seated, quiet practice), at 2 MET — about 74 kcal for 30 minutes of that kind of practice for a 70 kg adult. Holding one pose for a minute is a rounding error either way.
The rest of the restorative poses on the wall
More restorative poses — first at the same level, then the rest of the family.
Asana names are traditional. Every step, benefit and caution on this page is written for YogaPath rather than reproduced from any book, studio or other library — see how this site is written and what it is written from. General information only — not medical advice. Some asanas are unsuitable during pregnancy, injury or specific conditions. Learn from a qualified teacher and stop if anything hurts.
SOURCE·Published asana references·asana names, alignment and cautions as taught·REVIEWED JUL 2026
The people behind these sites
Follow the build
This site and nine others like it are built and photographed by two people. New work goes up on Instagram before it reaches a page here.
Following changes nothing here — every page stays open, with no account and no wall.
