Peace and love, y’all! Thank you so much for including this in your day!
Here’s a transcript of this podcast episode for all my voracious readers:
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you are not getting upside down enough.
That might be a weird thing to hear. You might be thinking to yourself, "Why on earth would I ever get upside down?" Well, I'm about to tell you exactly why inversions are the number one most powerful tool in yoga, why inversions can replace a whole pharmacy list of medicines, and why, no matter what you're dealing with, they're guaranteed to help you.
Peace and love y'all. Welcome back to another moment of stillness. My name is Etai Atula, coming to you live from beautiful upstate New York. Y'all hear the birds chirping, and you already know what's going on.
I want to start by giving a very special shout-out to all the students who have been working with me one-on-one. I love y'all so much. Today I had a lot of different calls with students; we were talking about how to cure panic attacks, how to prevent injuries in hypermobile people, how to fix low self-esteem, and a whole bunch of other things.
In case you're new here, my name is Etai. I have been traveling Asia for the past year on my solo travel voyage, studying yoga under great masters in India and Nepal and all over the continent, soaking up as much ancient wisdom as I can so that I can come here and translate it into modern tools for transformation—something that my chronically online family can understand because we all deserve these tools that will help us transform.
We live in a world where the powers that be want us to be unwell, want to control us as the population because our attention is the greatest commodity to be bought and sold between corporations. So I want to thank you deeply for putting your attention here.
Now, let's get into the reason we gathered here today. Let's talk about inversions. Let's talk about getting upside down. First, I'm going to tell you all the benefits of doing inversion postures. Then, I'm going to tell you which inversion posture you should be doing based on your skill level. And finally, I'm going to tell you which inversion is right for you based on whatever you're working on at the moment.
The Benefits of Getting Upside Down
Physical Benefits
On a purely physical level, inversions have a lot of really good effects on your muscular, skeletal, and circulatory systems.
Circulatory System: When you reverse the way that gravity impacts your body, your circulation is going to appreciate that so much. You are sending more blood flow to your head and your throat. This improves the circulatory function of the heart, making it much easier for blood to travel from the tips of your feet back up into your heart so that it can recirculate. This will oxygenate the brain and even improve lymph flow, which is very important for detoxing the body.
Reduced Swelling: In that same vein, inversions will also greatly reduce the swelling in your legs. When we walk around upright all day, blood flow naturally goes to our legs and feet. That's why a lot of us have swollen ankles and pain in our feet. When you get upside down, you are draining all this blood from the lower half of your body, reducing swelling and inflammation.
Spinal Health: One of my favorite things about an inversion is that it's amazing for your spine. When I'm standing up straight, my spinal discs are like a Jenga tower with my lumbar spine at the bottom, bearing all the weight. This creates a lot of pressure in the lower back. But when you're upside down, your lower back gets a decompression. The spinal discs get a little more room to breathe. This is going to prevent back injury and might even make you an inch taller because when our spine is healthy and long, we actually do look taller.
Strength and Balance: If you're doing active inversions, this is really good for strengthening your core, upper body, and improving your balance. We take for granted how good our legs are at holding our whole body upright. When we get upside down, we realize it's a really hard job that our arms and core might not naturally be good at. You're going to have way stronger arms, chest, abdomen, back, and even neck muscles when you practice active inversions.
Mental and Emotional Benefits
It doesn't matter if you're doing an active or passive inversion for the rest of these benefits.
Activates Parasympathetic Nervous System: When you're upside down, you breathe way slower and way deeper. Your body goes into a state of tranquility that's going to improve your mood and lower cortisol overall. Activating the parasympathetic nervous system has been known to lower anxiety and depression. You'd be amazed at how quickly you can come down from a panic attack just by getting upside down. Sounds crazy, but don't knock it until you try it. It's worked for me.
Oxygenates Your Brain: So much more blood flow is entering your brain when your head is closest to the floor. It's like you're giving your mind a hug of oxygen and vitality that's going to improve your cognition, mental sharpness, and focus. It is even really good for headaches in that way because you're telling your body, "Pay attention to my head. Fix whatever's going on here."
Improves Heart Function: When you're upside down, you're kind of treating your body like a snow globe, allowing the circulation to reorient itself. Your heart doesn't have to work as hard; you're giving it a break. In the same way that cardiovascular endurance training is good for your heart, giving your heart a chance to relax is equally good for it.
Boosts Lymphatic Detox: Blood is not the only awesome liquid in our body. Another really awesome liquid is lymph, which you can imagine as your body's sanitation department. The more you allow this lymph to move around and be stimulated by pressure and by changes in gravity, the better your body will be at detoxing. If you have swollen lymph nodes or a cold, getting upside down can kick your lymphatic system into gear.
Yogic and Energetic Benefits
People have been popping headstands for over 5,000 years, and there's a lot of lost ancient wisdom about what an inversion can really do on a subtle level.
Encourages Upward Flow of Prana: The ultimate life force in yoga philosophy is a word called prana. You can't see it or touch it, but prana is the vital energy of the universe. When you get upside down, you actually encourage the prana to flow up your spine towards your head. This is really good for stimulating your upper chakras: the throat chakra, the third eye chakra, and the crown chakra. If you're someone who has a lot of anxiety and can't be in creative mode 'cause you're always in survival mode, then bringing prana to your upper chakras is going to help you see the world for what it really is, communicate clearly, tune into your intuition, and feel more connected to the universe.
Prompts Self-Study (Svadhyaya): Inversions are really good for prompting a yogi to do svadhyaya, the Sanskrit word for self-study. When you're right side up, you're in your comfort zone and you forget to think about what's actually going on in your body. But when you're upside down, you are finely tuned in to all the signals your body is sending you. You can listen to your body whisper so you don't have to hear it scream. That mind-body connection is going to ripple out and help you regulate your emotions and recover from sickness.
Invokes Surrender: Finally, the best thing about inversions is that they invoke surrender. When we have our head above our heart, we have this habit of wanting to control everything. When you get upside down, you have very little control. You might be disoriented, you might forget right and left, you might forget up and down, and it's a great way to just let go and let God handle it. The longer you stay upside down, the more you can loosen your clenched fists and trust the path of life. This mentality is one of the greatest antidotes for anxiety, for high blood pressure, for jaw tension.
So you can start to see how that can replace a whole cabinet full of pharmaceutical drugs. It can teach us that our body is smarter than we even know and is fully capable of healing itself. We just have to put it in the position—the upside-down position—to let it happen.
Reasons to Avoid Inversions (Contraindications)
Before we move on, here are a few reasons why you might want to avoid getting upside down.
If you have glaucoma or eye pressure issues, inversions should be avoided.
If you've recently had a stroke or have cardiovascular complications (issues with your heart or blood pressure), inversions are to be avoided.
If you have any issues in your cervical spine or in your neck, you should avoid certain active inversions as it will put more pressure on your neck.
If you are menstruating, it's been advised that you should wait until after menstruation is over to do inversions.
If you are pregnant, you should avoid getting upside down.
You shouldn't put your belly above your head unless you have an empty stomach, meaning you should wait a few hours after you've eaten.
Don't worry if you fit into one of those categories; I have other videos about what to do for those issues. For everyone else, you're safe to do inversions, but once again, listen to your body whisper so you don't have to hear it scream.
Which Inversion Should You Do?
Super Beginner: Head Hang Off the Bed
Just lie in bed, belly down, and scoot so that your collarbones are on the edge of the bed and let your head hang forward. That's going to bring your head below your heart, oxygenating your brain, relaxing your nervous system, and getting you started on the path of inversions.
Beginner: Legs-Up-the-Wall Pose
This one is super simple. You just lie on the floor and bring your butt to the corner where the floor meets the wall. Then you want to swing your legs up the wall so the bottom of your feet are facing heaven. This is a very passive one, so you can do this inversion all day, all night. It's really good right before bed, as it's going to calm your body down and activate your parasympathetic nervous system. It's also great for digestion and for calming anxiety.
Intermediate: Shoulder Stand (Candlestick Pose)
To do a shoulder stand, start by lying on your back. Then grip your butt with your hands, push your elbows into the floor, and send your feet up into the air. It's a little more active and requires core strength. One of the best benefits of shoulder stand is that it will tuck your chin into your chest, stimulating your thyroid and parathyroid glands. This will do wonders for balancing hormones in your body.
Advanced: Headstand (Sirsasana)
I would say don't attempt a headstand unless you're confident and you've done it before, or if you have a teacher there to guide you because it can be very easy to injure yourself. But in yoga, they call the headstand the "king of all asanas" because if you're able to do it correctly, it can have the most benefits. Every benefit I mentioned will come into play. Please, if it's your first time, do it under a teacher's guidance.
I hope you found this helpful. I hope I motivated you to get upside down. I have made it my life's mission to translate this ancient yoga wisdom into modern tools for transformation because there's a lot of wisdom that's been buried. If yoga has changed your life in any way, I encourage you to share how in the comments and continue spreading the love and wisdom forward so that we can one day live in a world where everybody is a yogi.
If you enjoyed this, please rate, subscribe, or give it a like. Leave a comment and introduce yourself. And above all, send it to your mom, your crush, your homie—send it to somebody who might need to hear this.
I love you dearly, and I'll catch you next time. Stay smiling, stay breathing deeply, stay upside down. Peace and love.
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