Turning toward mortality: yoga’s savasana as a salutogenic practice for engaging with death anxiety

Death anxiety is prevalent across many modern cultures and is associated with significant psychological, social and economic costs, including avoidance of advance care planning and the overuse of life-prolonging medical interventions at the end of life. From a yogic perspective, this pervasive clinging to life reflects abhinivesha , one of the five kleshas (mental afflictions) described as a potent contributor to human suffering. This Perspective proposes a conceptual shift from pathogenic models focused primarily on life-extension and symptom reduction toward a salutogenic approach that emphasizes meaning-making and adaptive engagement with mortality across the lifespan. Antonovsky’s salutogenic framework highlights Sense of Coherence (SOC)—comprehensibility, manageability and meaningfulness—as a psychosocial resource that supports wellbeing even in the face of profound existential stressors. We suggest that cultivating conscious mortality awareness may strengthen SOC by supporting individuals to relate to death with greater understanding and existential coherence. Drawing on yoga philosophy, contemplative practice and public health scholarship, we propose savasana (corpse pose) as an embodied contemplative practice that may offer a structured experiential engagement with impermanence. Rather than positioning savasana as a treatment for death anxiety, we frame it as a salutogenic practice that can surface existential concerns and support reflective meaning-making over time. When practiced intentionally and upstream across the lifespan, savasana may provide an accessible, low-cost compassionate approach to facing death anxiety through embodied conscious awareness of our own mortality.