Tag Archives: inversions

Yoga is full of inversions, which basically means where your head is below your heart.  Why does that matter and why should you do them?  Obviously, because it’s fun!  But here are a list of other reasons why you should go upside down.

1. Mentally, it shakes things up.  We are always looking, thinking, and living from a position with our heads above our hearts or parallel to our hearts.  Flip your body around, and your mind starts flipping, too.
2. Mentally, it opens up your mind.  By trying out a new point of view (being upside down), you are stretching your mind’s capabilities, thereby allowing more room in your mind to be open to other experiences, points of view, thoughts, etc.  But spending part of your life upside down, it gives you a new perspective on life.
3. Mentally, it helps you face your fears.  Going upside down can be scary at first for many people.  By addressing this fear and learning how to conquer going (and staying) upside down, you build your character and your confidence.
4. Physically, it strengthens your core, as well as other parts of your body, depending on what pose you do.  For example, forearm stands, like above, also strengthen your shoulders, back, biceps, and triceps.  Handstands, even those against the wall (or the tree like below) also strengthen the same body parts, but to a different degree and in different parts of the same areas.
5. Physically, it helps reduce wrinkles.  The increase in blow flow and oxygen helps rejuvenate your skin, plus the gravity helps reduce the wrinkles.
6. Physically, it can either energize you or relax you.  Energizing inversions are those that require more effort and will get your heart pumping more.  They include headstands, forearm stands, and handstands.  Relaxing inversions help calm the nervous system and produce feelings of balance and calm.  Doing relaxing inversions like shoulder stand and legs-up-the-wall can help you fall asleep if you are having trouble.
7. Mentally and Physically, it helps increase circulation to your brain and provides oxygen to your brain, thus assisting with mental functioning, and improving concentration, memory, and processing abilities.
8. Mentally and Physically, it helps your heart and your blood pressure.  They enable the heart to rest a little bit, because since the blood pressure to the brain is increasing, receptors that regulate blood flow sense the increase and signal the heart rate to lower and blood pressure to reduce.  This will also help your mood.

These are just a few benefits, but there are so many more.  They help relieve sinus congestion, they help boost your immune system, they help you act like a child again by playing around, they’re natural anti-depressants, and they assist in digestion!  So give it a try!  It’ll be worth it!

Previous Yoga Post – Crow – The Gateway Arm Balance

Sinus congestion is horrible – not being able to breathe, going through boxes of tissues, restless nights, etc.  If you want to relieve it without resorting to medicine, here’s what to do:

1. Use a neti pot once a day.  The neti pot will irrigate your sinuses, freeing up some of the congestion and washing out some of the stuff stuck in there that may be causing the congestion in the first place.
2. Take raw honey and cinnamon 3 times a day.
3. Drink at least 16 ounces of green juice for breakfast every day.
4. Get upside down!  Going upside down will also help free up some of the congestion.  It will be hard at first because you won’t be able to breathe at all through your nose but stay upside down and you’ll notice the congestion starts getting looser and moving around.
5. Massage your face to loosen things up.  I use my fingers to massage the area between my cheekbones and my nose, the area below my eyes, in outward circles.  Also try massaging the area outside of the eye cavity, just above the nose but below the brows, as well as your cheekbones.
6. After a hot shower, immediately blow your nose.
7. AVOID DAIRY!  Dairy already causes mucus buildup in your body (albeit in the colon, not the nose) but you will make your body work even harder to get rid of the sinus congestion if you consume dairy.  In fact, you should ideally stick to as much of a raw vegan diet as you can.  Also try eating spicy food.

And there you go!  If you do all of these, you’ll notice major strides within a day or two, and should be able to completely kick the congestion’s butt soon after that.

Previous Detox Post – Benefits of Raw Honey and Cinnamon

Next Detox Post – Easy Morning Detox – Warm Lemon Water (With Cayenne)

Headstands can be intimidating at first.

Forward folds will help you get used to the idea of being upside down.

Once you get used to being upside down, it’s now just a matter of getting your body positioned so you can get your legs in the air.

So here are some tips:

• Usually we are taught to get into it from downward dog.  Whether or not you are in headstand with your forearms on the ground or in tripod headstand with just your hands on the ground, you want your elbows to be no wider than your shoulders.  An easy way to measure is to bend your elbows and grab the opposite elbows with your hands.  That’s the width.  Do not go wider than that.  You will risk crunching into your shoulders.  You want to gain your strength by pulling your shoulders away from your ears and push into your hands or forearms.  If your forearms are on the ground, you want to feel as if you can lift your head off the ground.

• If you’re in tripod, make sure your arms are at a 90 degree angle and your elbows are shoulder-width apart.

• Bring your feet in until your hips are above your shoulders.  That is where your stability will be.  Lock that position in by keeping your tailbone tucked in and your mula bandha (pelvic muscles) engaged (squeeze them).

• Once that happens, I find the easiest way to get into it is to bend one leg into your body, lifting that foot off the ground, then the next.  The reason this is easiest is because your center of gravity has little danger of shifting.  If you’re doing tripod, you can rest your knees on your upper arms.

• Then, slowly raise your legs up.  Engage your legs.  I find the best way to do this is to flex your feet as if you’re standing on the ceiling.  Keep your tailbone tucked!  Engage your belly and your pelvic muscles!  Stay focused on one spot somewhere.

• Don’t let stray thoughts into your mind.

• Practice, practice, practice!

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