Bending Asanas & Blood Pressure

Yoga Discussion General Yoga
#1

Dear Friends,

I am slowly developing my Yoga practice, as I do so I come across some hurdles.
My current hurdle is that when I do asanas which require persistent bending (& staying in a bent position for a while) e.g. Parsvottanasana, Wall-hang etc, I find that my blood pressure drops which in turn gives me a mild one sideded headache (migraine).

This makes me shy to do these wounderfull asanas.

Any suggestions, PLEASE!

Thank you,

Namaste,
Fin

#2

Dear Fin,

Inverted poses like Sirsasana or Sarvangasana or partially inverted poses like Parsvottanasana, Adho Mukha Svanasana will cause blood to flow to the brain area due to reversal of gravity. This defintely helps to improve brain function like memory and focus. If you are getting headaches after performing such asanas, I am guessing that you are not concluding with Shavasana (deep relaxation pose) after these poses. It is very important to end any yoga session with at least 10 to 15 minutes of Shavasana to bring the body from its activated state. Perhaps you already know this but below are the steps for Shavasana

  1. Lie flat on your back, let you ankles fall to the sides and keep the palms 6 inches from your body palms facing up
  2. Take you attention successively to left foot, ankle, calf muscles, knee, thighs, hip, repeat on right leg, pelvic region, lower and upper abdomen, chest, left palm, lower arm, elbow, upper arm, shoulder, repeat on right arm, neck, lower jaw, lower and upper lip, nose, left and right ear, left and right eye, left and right eyebrows, space between the eyebrows, forehead, the whole head (since you are getting headches pause the attention on your head for 2 minutes or so).
  3. Then mentally view your whole body as one integrated system and observe the stillness for sometime
  4. The above can be completed in 7 to 8 minutes. Finally take your attention to your breath and just pay attention to your breath - don’t try to control it. Try counting your breaths. If your mind goes to something else then gently bring it back to the breath and start counting from the beginning
    If after performing Shavasana, you still get headaches, then just take it easy with inverted poses. While minor body aches after yoga are normal a headache should be treated more seriously. Please post an update of whether Shavasana helped with the headache.

Best wishes and peace

#3

Please fully list the problematic poses and tell me how they are being done with what breath and what duration please.

At that time I’ll direct you more thouroughly should you still want an answer.

#4

Dear InnerAthlete,

Thank you for your kind offer.
Here are the instructions i follow for
Parsvottanasana: I start in Tadasana.
As I inhale I lift my hands up with arms shoulder length apart, fingers together thumbs apart.
As I exhale I stretch & bend forward (keeping my legs & back straight) then hold my upper shin.
I inhale again & stretch further down. I exhale & rest at that point on the shin.
I continue till I cant slide any further & I rest there for 6 breaths.
I repeat this on the other leg.

Any thoughts please.
Thank you,
Namaste.
Fin

#5

Fin,

  1. stay for three breaths and the report back if the pressure issue is still there.

  2. the spine is never “straight” but I will assume you mean “neutral”. The spine has three built-in curves and they are maintained in certain poses but not in others. In tadasana of course the three curves are maintained. In Balasana they are not.

  3. the pose you are doing can be modified by faving a wall and placing the hands on the wall, keeping the spine parallel to the ground (therefore not folding over). This may alleviate your issue.

All of this though is guesswork as there’s simp[ly not enough to formulate a better reply.