Names
Karnapidasana, Ear Pressure Pose
How to perform Karnapidasana
You can go into this pose from Sarvangasana, the shoulder stand, or Halasana, the plow. This means you either have your legs straight over you or on the floor behind your head and your hands are supporting your back.
In both cases you slowly bend your knees and place them next to your ears.
You can either place your arms flat on the floor behind your back, palms flat or with your fingers interlaced, or, more advanced, you can put your arms around your thighs and actually hug your legs with your knees next to your ears.
In order to come out of Karnapidasana, support your back with your hands and straighten your knees to go back into the plow pose.
Then come in Sarvangasana by bringing your legs straight up into the air. Slowly bring your back and legs back down to the floor.
Annotation
Here it is recommended to do Sarvangasana, Halasana and Karnapidasana in a row.
This is a popular sequence of inversion postures which increases the benefits of the inversion.
It is always recommended to do either Matsyasana or Chakrasana after these three poses and in this way it suffices to do that once.
If one decides to perform all three yoga poses separately, it is advisable to do Matsyasana or Chakrasaana after each pose to relax the spine.
Benefits of Karnapidasana
Karnapidasana obviously stretches the muscles of your back and your legs. In this way it can prevent back pain.
Your thyroid gland is stimulated through this pose, too, and activated to work properly.
Additionally, Karnapidasana is good against problems of the ears. As an inversion pose, the blood flow in the head is increased and your ears get an additional pressure through your knees at the sides.
This pressure with the higher blood flow helps your ears to cleanse themselves and can increase your hearing ability.
Through the higher amount of oxygen coming to your head, the pose helps you to think clearly and thus releases stress.
As all inversion poses, this one is good against diabetes because of the increased blood flow and also helps you to sleep better at night.