Benefits of bharadvajasana

Bharadvājāsana II is a seated twist asana. Twists are beneficial on many levels; increasing mobility of the spine, stretching and strengthening back muscles, stimulating internal organs, assisting digestion, stimulating samana vayu (an internal pranic flow) and of course leading us to integration! The benefits to the spine are obvious. We mostly on a day to day level forwardly flex the spine in bending over actions so twists give us an opportunity to explore another range of movement of the spine and bring a well needed stretch to back muscles such as the quadratus lumborum and latissimus dorsi amongst others. The internal organs of the abdomen are stimulated through compression which leads to increased blood flow on release (and the liver particularly benefits from this as a holder of 25% of our blood in the body with over 500 functions identified!). The compression and stretch alternately through the abdominal region stimulates digestion in much the same way as stronger practices like uddiyana bandha and nauli do. Samana vayu (one of the 5 directional pranic flows in the body) is strongly associated with digestion (both food and life experiences) and is considered to be a focussing energy, which is apparent in these postures in their ability to take us to a deep state of absorption, which also leads me to my final point of moving us towards integration. Ultimately we use any type of yoga posture for greater awareness of that which is real and continuous, which we can call consciousness, ground of being, essence nature, awareness itself, Brahman, Siva or even god if you dare! Whatever your motivation for practicing yoga however, let it absorb you in the practice and you will receive a clarity and calmness (and even joyfulness) that only comes from a merging of ourself with present moment awareness which can't be bad!