I used to be terrified to do inversions because I was afraid to fall. I was worried I might hurt myself and didn’t have faith in myself that I had the strength or balance needed for them. I practiced yoga a lot and I had a deep understanding of the practice. When I decided I was going to take my yoga teacher training, I knew it was time to dive into mastering inversions. After all, how was I going to be an inspiration to others in yoga if I wasn’t willing to fight my own fear?
The thing is, inversions are safe if you practice safely. For anyone with spine, neck, or head injuries, you would need to be extremely cautious about your inversion practice. This goes for anyone with high blood pressure or heart issues.
Even for those in perfect health, you should still offer respect to the complexity of inversions. This includes warming up the back, shoulders, and neck beforehand as well as stretching out your legs and side body. Listen to your body and take it slow.
Sirsasana (headstand) puts a great deal of pressure on the shoulders, neck, and shoulders so working slowly towards your goal can prevent injuries.
The Essential Steps to Safely Mastering the Headstand
Starting pose – Child’s Pose
You will want to make your child’s pose active. This means you want to lift your elbows off the floor and really straighten your arms for strength and lengthening.
Push your hands into the floor and reach the hips back over your heels.
Keep the arms active so you can warm them up, stretch them and lengthen the side body. Doing so stretches out the supporting muscles that will help you with your headstand.
Rabbit Pose
Next step, come out of child’s pose and start in table top. This is to get your elbows aligned properly.
Put elbows directly under the shoulders.
With your hands, grab onto the opposite elbow and make sure you can wrap your arms comfortably around your elbows.
Uncross the arms but leave your elbows in the same spot.
Then, take your arms out in front and interlace your fingers which creates a stable base. Your arms will form a perfect triangle.
Tuck your toes under and put your head in your hands with the top of your head on the floor.
Work on putting a little weight on your head. Most of your weight should be on your arms and hands.
Rock hips forward which will cause you to naturally round your spine. Draw your belly button in towards your spine.
Downward Dog with Dolphin Arms
Start in table top and set up your arms like a triangle, fingers interlaced (like in rabbits pose.)
Come up to a downward dog but keep your elbows on the floor.
Come up on the toes a few times and put heels on the floor a few times.
In this pose, your head will be on the floor.
Going into a Headstand
Put your mat up to the wall. Measure from your fingertips to your elbow away from the wall. Place your hands there.
Put your head between your hands on the floor, ensuring your elbows are in a triangular shape. This is the same shape we spoke about in rabbits pose.
Tuck your toes and come into downward dog with your head on the ground.
Engage tummy and lift one foot up. Put it down and life the other foot up. Raise one leg up at a time, introducing your body to the inversion.
Eventually you can do a gentle kick up and land your foot to the wall behind you until you feel steady.
Then lift your other foot to the sky.
It’s important to focus on creating inner core strength before expecting to excel at headstands or other complex inversions. Viparita Karani (Legs up the Wall Pose) helps stabilize while strengthen the body. It can help you prepare and condition you for handstands and allow you to practice without falling over and possibly injuring yourself.
9 Reasons Why Headstands Will Make Your Life Better
1) Encouraging the Flow
Going upside down is said to ignite the seventh chakra, the Crown chakra. This is where the nectar of immortality dwells. Connecting to this allows you to tap into your inner fountain of youth, prolonging a healthy body.
2) Resting the heart
When you go upside down, you’ll allow your heart to rest for a few minutes. Blood flows more easily to your head and heart so the heart doesn’t have to pump blood upwards. This reduces blood pressure and the heart rate naturally.
3) You Improve Your Circulation
Many times, our tissues and fluids get concentrated into the lower part of our body which can cause varicose veins. Going upside down will drain those fluids that were originally stuck in one spot.
This includes your blood so the overall circulation improved and your body can cleanse itself more easily.
4) Stimulates the Lymphatic System
Within the lymphatic system is our circulation. This system is responsible for removing waste which helps our immunity stay strong. Turning upside down stimulates the lymphatic system, making the immune system capable of fighting off diseases. Stimulation also rejuvenates underused areas within your body.
When you invert your head, you can also clear blocked sinuses or lungs which is important for keeping viruses away.
5) Makes You More Energetic
Going upside down immediately gives you more energy. The blood flowing to your brain gives you a natural brain boost and gives you additional energy to get through your day with vitality.
6) You’ll Hone Your Balance Skills
Once you’re able to manage those headstands and handstands, you’ll be capable of balancing in any pose. Balancing upside down creates a different dimension that allows you to flip your perspective, allowing you to get a sense of what balancing is truly about.
7) You Build Essential Core Strength
In many of the simpler poses, you can avoid really using your core. Inversions don’t allow you to do that. You must use your core strength in order to stay balanced in a headstand or a handstand. If you don’t, you’ll simply fall out of the pose. These kinds of inversions literally show no core mercy.
This is especially true for women, who tend to be stronger in their lower bodies. Building up core strength allows you to work up to the most advanced inversions. A strong core is essential in protecting your back from injury and keeping good posture.
8) You Build Your Confidence
Like anything worth doing, you may have to become a master to accomplish an inversion. When you practice every day and believe that it’s possible, you work towards the goal. When you finally achieve it, it feels really good.
You begin to understand from every little step of progress that you make that you can do anything. You just have to prove to yourself that it’s possible.
It Helps Relax You
Cooling inversions such as Legs up the Wall calm down your nervous system and allow you look within. All of this will make you feel balanced, centered and at peace.
9) Gain New Perspectives
Going upside down can be powerful enough for some that they start to see things differently. You may have a problem you keep trying to sort out or a way of being. Going upside down can shake the foundation of your thoughts and change the way you deal with your everyday life.
So, in conclusion…
Going upside down can create a different sensation for every person. Maybe it’s just a great workout for your core or perhaps you will gain a different way of being altogether.
Author Bio: Meera Watts
Meera Watts is a yoga teacher, entrepreneur and mom. Her writing on yoga and holistic health has appeared in Elephant Journal, Yoganonymous, OMtimes and others. She’s also the founder and owner of Siddhi Yoga International, a yoga teacher training school based in Singapore. Siddhi Yoga runs intensive, residential trainings in India (Rishikesh, Goa and Dharamshala) and Indonesia (Bali). She can be reached on social media at any of the following:
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