The Most Grounding Yoga Pose for Your Zodiac Sign

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Yoga comes with a number of benefits, including a boosted mood, sharper cognitive functioning, even better sex. The practice can also help you find stillness and presence—especially if you discover which poses best help you access your inner reserves of grounding energy. The ideal grounding pose for you will calm your physical and energetic bodies. An easy way to determine that magic posture? Simply look to your zodiac sign.

“We channel our highest light through our sun sign, so it’s good to ground down,” says astrologer and yoga teacher Emily Ridout, author of AstroYoga for an Aquarian Age and founder of the International School of AstroYoga. Ridout suggests looking at your sun sign when seeking grounding. (Reminder: that’s the sign that influenced the sun when you were born, meaning it has a prominent influence on you, too.)

That said, you may also benefit from practicing poses aligned with other placements in your birth chart. For example, you may want to check your Mars placement. “Mars often goes really fast and needs to be slowed down,” says Ridout. Also, your moon sign rules your emotions, meaning it can also be pacified with grounding poses that are attuned to its needs. If you’re looking for a broader way to make the astro-yoga connection, practicing yoga in accordance with the current astrological season is another way to ground with the help of celestial energy.

Whatever energy you’re hoping to calm or harness, you’re covered with the most aligned grounding poses for each zodiac sign that follow.

The Most Grounding Pose For Your Zodiac Sign

From a fluid Cat-Cow for Libras to a strong Warrior II for Sag, these grounding poses suit your star sign needs.

Aries: Rabbit Pose

This close-to-the-ground shape is especially helpful for Aries, as the fire sign’s energy benefits from the grounding force of the Earth. Rabbit Pose, or Sasangasana, is great for more than stretching an achy lower back. According to Ridout, the pose also grounds the third eye, which is exactly what Aries needs as the sign—which rules over the head, top of the brain, and eyesight—is known for  its forward-driving energy, making a mental slow-down essential.

Taurus: Shoulderstand and Fish Pose

“Shoulderstand and Fish Pose fit together as a matched pair for Taurus,” says Ridout. Since Taurus rules the neck, lower brain, and lower jaw, Ridout notes that each of these poses effectively grounds these areas by reversing the upward flow of energy and drawing it toward the Earth.

Gemini: Humble Warrior

Gemini rules the arms, hands, shoulders, and lungs. Since your lungs affect your breathing—which is integral to both calming the nervous system and practicing yoga in general—Ridout suggests that this sign turn to Humble Warrior for grounding.

“In Humble Warrior, your legs are in Warrior 1, with the hands clasped behind the back,” she says. “The shoulder blades squeeze together, so they’re engaged and integrated, and the head bows down toward the Earth. There’s also deep breathing that occurs while you have these bound arms.”

Cancer: Standing Forward Bend

To understand what pose will be most grounding for Cancerians, Ridout suggests you literally envision a crab. Cancer rules over the area of the chest and stomach—which are areas of the body that house vital organs for sharing and receiving nourishment. Not coincidentally, the sign’s spirit animal has a protective shell that covers this portion of its body. Being too giving can throw this sign out of alignment energetically. That’s where Standing Forward Bend, or Uttanasana, can help.

“Cancers suffer if they care too much…they can give so much that they become depleted,” Ridout says. “In Forward Fold, the part of the body that’s giving is closed off and protected. This way, they are open to receiving through the back of the body.”

Leo: Puppy Pose

Leo rules the heart and spine. Puppy Pose, or Uttana Shishosana, facilitates grounding energy here. The pose essentially nudges the heart toward the Earth for grounding and opens the body into a backbend for receiving.

“Leo is the sign ruled by the sun, which is meant to house the true light of perfection. But a lot of us don’t see the true light of perfection as our hearts,” Ridout says. “People who have a strong Leo identity will look for that light, and Puppy Pose will help them find it.”

Virgo: Lord of the Fishes Pose

The best grounding pose for this Earth sign is Lord of the Fishes, or Matsyendrasana, a seated twist that physically stacks the body parts and follows an order that resonates with organizationally minded Virgo. When Virgos fall out of alignment, they can become susceptible to perfectionistic tendencies, directed either at themselves or at others. “Virgos can sometimes strictly adhere to rules as an attempt to control outcomes in their lives,” Ridout says. This pose can help soothe the nervous system.

Libra: Cat-Cow

Contrary to popular belief, Ridout says Libra isn’t characterized by being balanced but by pursuing balance. She suggests Cat-Cow as the perfect physical manifestation of that journey since Libra rules the low back area. “[Cat-Cow is] going to open up some energy around the low back,” she says. “It finds balance in those areas, which is the hallmark of Libra energy.”

Scorpio: Garland Pose

Since Scorpio energy is often naturally grounded, Ridout says the sign can benefit from being lifted, which is why she recommends Squat or Malasana. While this may seem like a grounding pose, it is energetically opening and lifting for the sexual organs and the entire pelvic area, which Scorpio rules. The essential difference is the opening is directed toward the Earth and not another person.

Ridout adds that this part of the body houses longheld emotional energy. “Those deepest places of ourselves are not meant to be hugely opened up to the world,” Ridout says. “They’re meant to be grounded and held and contained, and then to move up through your own body.” Garland Pose can facilitate that channeling.

Sagittarius: Warrior 2

While you may commonly find this fire sign busily zipping around with intentions to travel everywhere, Ridout says Sagittarius does very well with a clear intention. That’s why she suggests Warrior 2, or Virabhadrasana II, as a grounding pose for the fire sign that rules the hips and thighs.

“Warrior 2 has a very direct focus of the drishti, or the gaze,” she says. “It also has a steady movement in the thighs that’ll both open the hips, which feels nice, and also send the hips to the Earth to ground it down.”

Capricorn: Chair Pose

Ridout recommends Chair Pose, or Utkatasana, for sea goats. The pose is both grounding and strengthening for the knees and bones, both ruled by Capricorn.

It’s also grounding on an energetic level. “Cap can look too far in the future and work too hard,” says Ridout. “Chair Pose can increase the capacity to work hard, but also you can’t hold it forever—you hold it and then take a break. Breaks are just as important as important.”

Aquarius: Downward-Facing Dog

To ground an Aquarius, Ridout suggests Downward-Facing Dog, or Adho Mukha Svanasana. The air sign rules blood, circulation, and the ankles. Because this pose pushes down through the back heel, it offers energizes the entire back body “while also putting both feet and both hands on the ground,” says Ridout.

Also, since it’s technically an inversion, with the head moving below the heart, the pose can work the circulatory system in a different way than other poses, she says, working to ground Aquarius both literally and metaphorically.

Pisces: Legs up the Wall Pose

Pisces rules the feet, the lymph, and lymphatic drainage. For these fish, Ridout suggests Legs up the Wall, or Viparita Karani, as the most grounding option. “Pisces needs to let go, but they need to let go in a grounded way,” she says. “When they put their back on the ground and their feet in the sky, they’re able to take that place.”