Best Savasana Songs for Yoga Practice
As a yoga teacher, music selection can be enjoyable or daunting — I have always been a big music person so for me, creating playlists and choosing music has always been one of my favorite parts of creating a classroom experience.
For savasana in particular, I use three main guidelines:
10 minutes long
— I love having tracks that are about the same length as the savasana itself, which in the case of a Jivamukti Open Class, is 10 minutes. It keeps me honest in terms of making sure i’m not cutting short the students’ relaxation practice. I also like not having to move around the room to change/turn off the music during a time when stillness and quiet is the big idea!— of course there are exceptions to this… some of the best tracks are MUCH longer, but still workable. And, if you are teaching a different length of class or in a different lineage, you might not have the same 10 minute time constraint
Choose either Instrumental or Mantra
— No English Lyrics (with some exceptions) As my teachers, Sharon Gannon and David Life liked to remind us, the purpose of savasana is to move beyond the thinking mind and have that experience of conscious relaxation. To that end, lyrics activate the language and cognitive parts of the mind — which have the effect of taking us OUT of that blissful experience.— As with everything there are of course exceptions, but exceptions are just that…. choose wisely!
— Generally I select either no words at all, or mantra
Ambient, Melodic, Drone
— I try to stay away from any track with discernable percussion. Again, coming from my teachers who pointed out (i think accurately) that percussive beats and sounds are rajasic or activating and as such might be counter to inducing that savasana feeling!
— There are a couple of notable exceptions. One of which is the track “Weightless 1” by Marconi Union. I use this as an example because the beat is very subtle, and the beat is approx 60bpm which is the average resting heartbeat. Due to the fact that it sounds a little like a heart at rest, this track works in terms of encouraging that restful state.
Here are some of my all time favorites! Follow the playlist and follow me on Spotify for more yoga tunes