Padahastasana (Standing Forward Bend) – How to do and Benefits

Early mornings are a tough break, especially when it is compiled with tight scheduled office runs and a long day planned ahead. Within the quick bathroom runs and the final mirror touches, it is always advised that you opt for a little yoga time, squeezing it somewhere between your strict schedules.

Yoga for once is not only focuses on your health care but largely on your mental satisfaction as well. They say a healthy mind breeds a healthy being and this is why Yoga too many is a preferable medium for body fitness. In today’s article we shall talk about one such yoga called the Padahastasana. While we go through the guidelines and steps, we would also list the benefits for this yoga stance.

How to Do Padahastasana (Standing Forward Bend) and Benefits:

How To Do It?

This posture is in fact one of the easiest of the yoga stances where the final position will have you inverted waist up as you relax and ease into your pose. The English name for this is the hand-to-foot Pose, imposing the name on its literal meaning. The word ‘Padha’ refers to the foot while the ‘hasta’ goes for the hand.

However, even though the final stance may look temptingly easy to achieve, just know there is still a lot of stretching involved in this posture that would be hard for the normal rigid body. Therefore came the strict advice of not trying to perfect your stance at the very first try. With practice however, this will be as easy as a sponge cake.

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Get started by stepping on your yoga mat. You should be standing straight gazing at something on your eye level to prevent the neck from bending. Now straighten out your spine, aligning it perfectly with the neck. The same goes for your limbs which would be straight and rigid for the entire exercise.

Now slowly lift your arms up straight, making it parallel to the ground as you now bend forward, waist up. This is the second posture. Your lower body should maintain its rigid stance while the upper body bent straight now should be parallel with the ground. Go all the way down in the next step, keeping the limbs straight as you intend on touching your palms to your toes.

For the next step, look up and forward as you tense your body up to the second posture. Gaze forward for a second before slumping your body gracefully down to the last stance. Your head should hand low rested in between your arms as you rest your arms and release the tension from your upper body.

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How Does it Help Us?

• The padahastasana yoga regulates the blood flow in the body by increasing and decreasing it while you perform the yoga. This is why you might look a bit flushed out and red after the stance, but there is nothing to worry about it.
• This yoga is known for its beautifying skills as well. as you hang down your head, a certain amount of blood flow is rushing to your brains, nourishing the scalp and rejuvenating the facial muscles. This is why this can be related to stronger and longer hair along with brightening of skin.
• This is an immense workout for the spinal cord which goes through some stretches and bends thereby relieving the rigidity in itself.
• Back muscle pain can be cured through this exercise where you’re bending down while keeping the lower body rigid, stretches and opens out the muscle rigidity.
• The abdominal pressure experienced in this yoga stance is good for your digestive matters.

See More: Parivrtta Baddha Parsvakonasana

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