Upward Salute (Urdhva Hastasana) offers a great way to relieve digestion as part of your yoga routine. This pose, sometimes called Talasana or the Palm Tree Pose, emphasizes a tall back and stretched belly to help get your digestion moving and relieve fatigue.

So long as you don’t have neck or shoulder injuries, Upward Salute offers a great stretch through your core and shoulders. Find out about its many benefits below, as well as the best ways to perform the pose, no matter which name you prefer.

 

Benefits of Upward Salute

Upward Salute relieves fatigue by stretching your spine and offering your body a chance to re-energize. If you’re suffering from fatigue in the middle of the week, it could be from weakness and tightness forming around the muscles of your spine. This stretch offers relief to digestion problems as well by giving your internal organs more room and stretching that whole area.

If you have an achy back, this stretch is an easy way to get a little relief. Even those who suffer the symptoms of asthma can find relief with Urdhva Hastasana by opening their core and back.

In fact, you may notice when you do this pose that you already do a version of it (probably a bit slouchier!) when you feel stiff from a long sleep or after sitting in the car for a while. Your body tells you instinctively to reach up high and stretch yourself from your core to your fingertips. That’s because your body wants energy, and this is a great way to get it!

 

How to Do the Pose

Upward Salute begins in the familiar Tadasana or Mountain Pose. This means you’ll be standing straight; palms forward with hands at the hips, and toes together with the weight evenly distributed on the balls of your feet. Make sure your palms face outward, inhale, and stretch your arms towards the ceiling.

Not everyone will be able to bring their palms together (that’s okay!). Pay attention to your back and shoulders – you want to try to move your hands together over your head without hunching.

Get this as close as you can without rolling your shoulders and then stretch your elbows until your thumbs turn in. If you can’t make your arms straight, use a loop to hold your upper arms together in this pose. It’ll make it a little easier.

However, you do it, with your elbows straightened, tilt your head back a bit without letting your ribs slouch forward. You want to feel yourself getting long in your tailbone and your ribcage lifting, stretching your abdomen. Breathe here and allow yourself to relax into the pose.

As you exhale out of Upward Salute, let your arms fall to the side as you bend forward.

The goal here is to warm up for other yoga poses or to rejuvenate your body after sleeping or sitting for a while. This means that spinal alignment should be your focus, providing the key to the pose. As your muscles and nerves wake up all along your back, you may feel space opening in your spine and your posture stretching and straightening out.

If you’re an athlete that typically does deep stretches or twists to your spine before a workout, you should start with Upward Salute to enervate the nerves and muscles along your back.

 

The Takeaway

Upward Salute or Urdhva Hastasana, also called Palm Tree Pose because of the way your palms stretch over your head, helps you energize your spine. By stretching your abdomen, you can get digestion moving and fight the fatigue that can build up from sitting or sleeping.

This is a great warmup for deeper stretches or twists as well as a great way to come out of Mountain Pose rejuvenated and ready for other poses. Even if I’ve just been sitting on the couch for a while, Upward Salute helps me get up and get my energy back.