Simhasan                         
(Lion pose)
Our voice is the mirror of our thoughts. The exact feeling of sadness, happiness, fear, love, anxiety, etc. can be seen in the voice of an individual. Our voices reflect not only our state of mind but also the state of our nervous system. It becomes very important for an individual to keep our voice clear. our voice contributes so much to our day-to-day life. It is very important to improve the health of our voice box. But the question that arises is what could be done to improve the health of our voice box. The answer to this question is yoga. Yoga poses can be performed to improve our voice quality. People who tend to speak more or work at places that involve lots of talking such as a teacher or flight attendant need to practice such yoga asana. An individual can practice Simhasan or lion pose to release all the tension from your throat and enhance the health and quality of your voice box.
Simhasan is a Sanskrit word. The term Simha means lion, Asana means pose.
Hence the pose is also known as the lion pose. The lion pose is the most popular name for this pose. People, in general, call it the lion pose rather than Simhasan. The name of this pose is derived from its posture. While practicing the pose the practitioner poses like a lion roaring. Hence, the name was derived from the pose itself. To invoke the power and intensity of the lion’s roar the body and facial expressions become like a lion. In this pose, the practitioner mimics the roar of the lion. This pose will release tension and stress in your throat and can be beneficial in curing the problem of bad breath. This pose is also known for increasing the blood flow in your face and throat. While practicing this pose we have to fix our gaze at a place. This gazing will reduce the irritation of our eyes and reduce the redness and pain. This pose will also de strain your eyes. Practicing this pose will squeeze out all the negative energy from your body and give you a feeling of happiness, stress-free, and light.
Benefits:

• Calms mind: This pose is known for calming your mind. The practitioner practices this yoga pose by producing the sound of roaring. The sound will release all the negative energy and thoughts. This will reduce emotional stress and frustration. Hence results in calming your mind.
• Delay aging: This pose involves facial exercise. practicing this pose will involve the exercise of your facial muscles. It will remove wrinkles and tighten the facial skin. This pose needs the involvement of our face and hence rejuvenates it.
• Prevent bad breath: This pose helps an individual in treating respiratory tract infections. A healthy respiratory tract will result in removing the bad breath.
• improves speech disorder: This pose will open up your throat and hence treat the problem related to the tongue, throat, or vocal cords. It helps in curing speech disorders like stammering, stuttering, and lisping. This pose could be beneficial in speech disorders. It also helps to develop a clear and toned voice.
• Activates the energetic look: Simhasan helps keep the practitioner away from diseases. It activates the three major energetic locks in an individual. It includes Mula i.e. root lock, Jalandhar i.e. throat chakra, and uddiyana i.e. abdominal lock.
• Soothing effects on the eyes:  Simhasan will provide a soothing effect to your eyes. When the practitioner is practicing the pose it will gaze in a certain direction and help in relieving the pain and strain from eyes that might have been caused because of the prolonged seating in front of a computer or mobile device.
• Relieves tension in the chest and face: This pose focuses on enhancing blood circulation in your face. It provides a gentle stretch to the face and chest. The stretch will release tension from your chest and face.
• Platysma muscles: The platysma muscles are the superficial muscles of the human neck. This pose will stimulate the platysma muscles and lift your face and firms the throat. While practicing this pose we massage our platysma muscles and stimulate them.
• Thyroid gland: Practicing this pose will improve the overall health of the thyroid gland. It massages the thyroid gland and stimulates them. the stimulation thus helps in curing both hyperthyroid and hypothyroid.
• Release tension: This pose will release tension from your neck, back, shoulder, face, and chest. It provides a gentle stretch to the neck, back, shoulder, and chest. The stretch will release the unnecessary tension of your body and make us feel lighter.
• Activates chakra: This pose will activate the vishuddha and Manipura chakra. Vishuddha chakra is known as the purification center. It purifies our body from harmful substances and cleans the body.  Manipura chakra is located at the navel. It is the center of vitality. Hence, this pose will activate both the chakras and enhance the overall health of an individual.

Technique:
Step 1: Sit on the floor in a child pose with your knees wide apart.
Step 2: Place your palm on the floor between your knees. Your back should be straight.
Step 3: Turn your fingertips towards you and your wrist outwards.
Step 4: Keep your chest open and shift in the forward direction with your spine straight.
Step 5: Pull out your tongue as much as you can and inhale the air. Inhale the maximum air you can and hold.
Step 6: Gaze in the front direction and exhale the filled air with the ‘AAAA’ sound.
Step 7: Repeat the pose as much as possible.
Precautions:

• Do not practice this pose if you are suffering from spine, back, buttock injury.
• Do not practice this pose if you have recently recovered from surgery.
• This pose is prohibited if an individual is suffering from throat cancer. This will worsen the case.
• Do not practice this pose if you had surgery on your throat. This may worsen the pose
• This pose is prohibited during pregnancy. You must consult your doctor before practicing this pose to avoid any kind of injury.

Props and modifications:

• You can support yourself with a blanket underneath if you can’t sit on the floor.
• To modify this pose you can bring your legs closure and sit in the cobra stretching pose. This will stretch your thighs, spine, and back a little more.
• You can support yourself along a wall to avoid injury.