Everybody Upside-Down

Let gravity work for you. Inversions are good for your lungs, heart, thyroid, and more.

By Yoko Yoshikawa

A year ago, the morning after carrying his bouncing 2-year-old boy on his shoulders, Peter woke up and discovered he couldn't move his head. The pain in his neck and shooting down his left arm was so intense that he could not lie on his back, sit upright, or focus enough to drive a car. Diagnosed with cervical radiculitis at C5, C6, and possibly C7, Peter missed work, numbed himself with muscle relaxants, and kept his neck trussed up in a brace for two weeks. He discovered that the pose that gave him greatest relief was Uttanasana. For months, his practice was gentle and low-to-the-ground: hip-openers, forward bends, and restorative work. Five months later, the skin of his left elbow was still numb and the first fingers on his left hand occasionally tingled.

The irony of his injury wasn't lost on him. Forty-one years old at the time, Peter had been practicing yoga for 13 years. Though he knew he was getting older, Peter had always been "good" at yoga, handling advanced poses with aplomb, competing with his peers for the teacher's compliments.

He had started practicing inversions within the first year of his practice. Shouldn't those 13 years of Headstands and Shoulderstands have guaranteed that Peter's neck would be strong, supple, able to withstand his child's weight and unpredictable, energetic kicks?

Or is it possible, rather, that Peter's inverted practice created the conditions for his injury? Peter has had tight neck muscles throughout his adult life, and in times of stress, his shoulders hunch up toward his ears. Peter's modus operandi for years was to show up for class a few times a week and blithely hoist his densely muscled body upside down via his neck muscles.

He forced himself to stay upright through a 10-minute Headstand, sweating liberally. Perhaps one can do that without repercussions at 20-something, but a dozen years later, the effort takes its toll. We all operate in a tangle of pernicious habits, and unless we consciously unpack and dismantle them in our yoga practice, they lie in wait and trip us up.

Many yoga practitioners in the United States are probably like Peter—householders pressed by other demands and desires, unable to practice yoga daily. So they show up for class whenever feasible, and execute every pose that does not provoke immediate and acute pain.

Peter's teacher, like any good yoga teacher, urged his students to develop a home practice, but Peter had never found the time. While it's impossible to say how pivotal Peter's inverted practice was to his injury, it's worth asking the question: If he had practiced more consistently, more mindfully, could he have averted it?

Sirsasana (Headstand) and Sarvangasana (Shoulderstand) are seductive poses—physically challenging, visually dramatic, and exhilarating. They are also surprisingly accessible. Despite the limitations of a tight lower back or hamstrings, most yoga practitioners can move into an inversion relatively easily.

As yoga grows ever more popular (there are more students practicing hatha yoga in California than in the entire country of India today, asserts Larry Payne, coauthor of Yoga for Dummies), students are enthusiastically practicing Headstand and Shoulderstand across the nation—in crowded Ashtanga classes without props, and for fairly long periods (10 minutes plus) in Iyengar Yoga classes.

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