Experiment with Sun Salutation.

For the past 20 days, I’ve been trying to find out if the Sun Salutation (Surya-Namaskar) practice can help me to lose weight, increase my flexibility and help me to maintain a high level of my mood and energy during the day. Read below what I’ve discovered.

Hypothesis.

If I will practice the Sun Salutation for 10 days in a row with 12 repetitions (6 per each leg), then I will increase my flexibility, I will maintain a high level of my mood and energy during the day.

Plus, my inner worm “I-didn’t-do-anything-for-my-body-today” (if I have one) won’t show up anymore.

Educational video about the Sun Salutation practice.

Sorry, it’s in Russian *^__^/

Final data for 20 days experiment.

Data — 10 days WITH practice and 10 days WITHOUT it.

What was measured?

1. Flexibility photos.

Photos BEFORE the practice.
Photos immediately AFTER 10-days of the practice.
Photos AFTER 10-days WITHOUT the practice.

As you can see from the photos, BEFORE the practice, when I banded I could reach the floor with my fingers only, but not with my hands. As well as my hands itself were far from my legs. In comparison with the results after 10 days, when my hands completely lied down on the floor and were located on the same line with my feet. Progress can be seen in the sitting position too, when BEFORE the practice my hands went behind my heels with only the phalanges of my fingers. Compare to 10 days WITH practice when my wrists were already on the same level with my heels. Plus, you can’t really see it in photos, but in the sitting position, the legs lied much flatter after 10 days with practice. In the photos AFTER 10 days WITHOUT practice, it is clear that flexibility has returned to the original level.

2. My mood.

I was measuring the level of my mood in the beginning of the day immediately after practice and in the end of the day before the bedtime. After practice, my mood rose steadily up to 5 (excellent) and on average dropped by one point toward the end of the day. In contrast to the days WITHOUT practice, where the mood in the morning was never at 5 (excellent), varied from 4 to 3 (60% and 40% respectively). Four days out of ten WITHOUT practice my mood improved by one point by the evening, 2 days it deteriorated by 1–2 points in relation to the morning and the remaining 3 days in the evening stayed the same as in the morning.

In general, I can say that during the practice, the mood was more stable and 1–2 points higher than usual.

3. The energy level during the day.

In the morning, the energy level BEFORE the practice was at level 3 (rose, but operate on the machine) in seven cases out of ten and the remaining four days the level was at 4 (a spirited state). Compared to the days WITHOUT practice, when the level was 4 (a spirited state) for five days, three days — 3 (got up, but act like a machine) and one day started with 2 (hard, but I can get up).

However, WITH practice, energy rose by 1–2 points nine days out of ten, and also nine days out of ten it remained at the same level throughout the day. Compared to the days WITHOUT practice, where only three days out of ten the energy level did not decrease by the end of the day.

4. The inner worm.

Feeling of guilt for unfulfilled morning activity wasn’t noticed during all 20 days =)

5. Body measurements.

Measurements BEFORE the beginning of the experiment:

  • Waist: 72 cm.
  • Hips: 98.5 cm.
  • Pelvis: 90 cm.
  • Weight: 66.1 kg.

Measurements AFTER 10-days of practice:

  • Waist: 69 cm (-3 cm).
  • Hips: 97 cm (-1.5 cm).
  • Pelvis: 89 cm (-1 cm).
  • Weight: 64.7 kg (-1.4 kg).

Measurements AFTER 10-days WITHOUT practice, compare to the results after practice:

  • Waist: 71 cm (+2 cm).
  • Hips: 97 cm (0 cm).
  • Pelvis: 90.5 cm (+1.5 cm).
  • Weight: 65.5 kg (+0.8 kg).

My general conclusion.

Practice, which takes only 20–30 minutes a day, really helps to increase flexibility, stabilizes mood and energy level, increases energy and do not let it smoothly disappear during the day.

The inner-worm wasn’t noticed, maybe because it did not exist =)

A pleasant bonus was the loss in centimeters and weight! However, everything quickly returned to the original indicators without the practice. As well as flexibility, weight, energy level and mood rolled back.

If you are looking for an effective and short practice for daily use until the end of your life, then it is definitely worthwhile to include the Sun Salutation in your daily schedule.

Furthermore, I want to highlight the usefulness of the training video, which helped me throughout the experiment. Looking through it every 3–4 days and listening to Kostya’s tips and tricks, it helped me to improve my technique right at home on the yoga-mat.


If you want to implement any helpful habit in your life and you are looking for help or you have a stuck situation where you don’t know where to move and how to continue your development →

Book a Clean Language session with me and I will help.

Tanya Smirnova

Written by

Mindfulness Coaching | founder of http://self-unboxing.ru /and https://crewcoop.org| MA alumnus @HyperIsland |

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