Thanks for clarifying that, I’m sorry I came to the thread late and hadn’t read it all. I imagine it is difficult to get accurate measurements for both intra crainial and cerebral arterial pressure, so I guess we are looking for correlation to assess risk. It also seems odd to think that evolution wouldn’t have sorted these kind of issues out; other animals like giraffes have sophisticated mechanisms for maintaining balances in blood and crainial pressure when they change the position of their head… and while we are obviously not giraffes bending forwards is something humans have had to do a lot…
[QUOTE=Peteblackaby;25840]Thanks for clarifying that, I’m sorry I came to the thread late and hadn’t read it all. I imagine it is difficult to get accurate measurements for both intra crainial and cerebral arterial pressure, so I guess we are looking for correlation to assess risk. It also seems odd to think that evolution wouldn’t have sorted these kind of issues out; other animals like giraffes have sophisticated mechanisms for maintaining balances in blood and crainial pressure when they change the position of their head… and while we are obviously not giraffes bending forwards is something humans have had to do a lot…[/QUOTE]
Hehehehe
Evolution has been kind to us regarding neurological structures, nerve connections, etc, but it has been a “bitch” regarding other things. 
I started Yoga to help with my back pain. Why? Because our back is the antithesis of evolution. We can’t support the upper body weight because our spine is made for walking in four legs, not two. Neither are our knees. Our knees suck! hey are by far the worst structure you could fin in nature. Human decided to walk on two legs: our body decided not to, and we see the results everyday (back pain being the 25% of all General Practitioner consults).
Oh! But don’t think “yes to all, but we got a bigger brain”, because Mother Nature likes to play tricks. With additional development of the neocortex and pre-frontal lob come a lot of new diseases. Have you even seen a Schizophrenic Duck? A Suicidal Cow? Snake with multiple personality disorder? Oh, she played it well, didn’t her? Hehehehehe
Take care…
yeah, I take you’re point it’s one of the best arguements against intelligent design 
I don’t know if you’ve come across the work of serge gracovetsky; he wrote a book called the spinal engine, arguing that its actually a sophisticated locomotor system, and very compelling he his… but then again if you’ve got back pain …!
all the best
I finally got a hold of Yoga-Mimansa 1926 (editor Kuvalayananda). Kuvalayananda is one of the earliest researchers into the medical effects of yoga. This issue studies the effect of headstand (sirshasana) on blood pressure.
The subjects were 11 young adults of average health. Their average age was 22 ? 2 years and they had a normal body weight (body mass index 20 ? 2). They had normal blood pressures of 122/85 [FONT=Calibri](? 12/9). Brachial blood pressures were recorded with a sphygmomanometer (in mm Hg) using the auscultation method .[/FONT]
Blood pressures were recorded before, during and after headstand. Headstand was performed while the subjects? heels lightly touched a wall. This was done to decrease the muscular effort in the arms. Without the wall, the muscular contraction at the elbow decreased the blood flow and inconvenienced the measurements. Blood pressure was recorded just after getting into headstand (initial) and after every minute, the maximum duration being 5 minutes. Blood pressures were also recorded in a sitting position, just after headstand.
Averaged results are shown in the graph. Note that blood pressure rises from 122/85 while sitting to 140/111 after 2 minutes of headstand. Blood pressures then decrease to 131/108 at the end of the fifth minute of headstand. The increase in systolic blood pressure is only 18 mm Hg at the end of the second minute (diastolic 26 mm Hg). Blood pressures decreased after two minutes of headstand.
The effect of headstand on blood pressure is mild compared to other forms of exercise, like running (200/80), very strenuous exercise 245/160 (McArdle Exercise Physiology 1996, p 276) or a maximum of 320/250 attained by body builders in a dead weight double leg press (J. Appl. Phys 58:785-790, 1985).
The same study (yoga Mimansa 1926) contains blood pressure data on other asanas as well. I’m sharing it with you all here. Note that, for these subjects, headstand does not produce markedly different blood pressures from other asana.
Thanks very much Willem, this is very useful data, and gives us more basis for assessing risk. I did a bit more research following your last posting. As you pointed out intra crainial pressure is regulated by the csf, but it does seem that intra crainial pressure changes in response to postural changes and is higher in the supine postion than the upright. Although I can’t find any measurements for inversions Iit would seem reasonable to think it might increase a little further there too. If this is the case risk of stroke would be further reduced during inversion. best wishes Pete
Hi gurus,
I am having high blood pressure and low HDL cholestorel problem.
I am taking medicines since last 8-9 months and started yoga also. Can you please let me know what will best suite me to cure my Blood pressure problem completely. Will I be ever able to remove my all medicines.
I visited taking baba ramdev clinic and they gave following medicine which I am taking since last 1 month:
divya mukta vati
medohar vati
chandraprabha vati
Please help…I’m feeling unhappy while taking medicine daily at this small age.
Thank you all
Niraj
Age: 26
Male
60kg
5’5"
any info plz
6 years and high blood pressure? It is something to be very careful about mate…
The non-medical advice I could give you (although with my background I would definitely recommend you to follow a medical prescription :D) would be:
First of all, about 40-50% young people who have high blood pressure with a reason different from a reaction to a secondary pathology will end up without medication if changing their life styles.
[U]
DIET:[/U]
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Try to eat lots of water. even though water intake could increase blood pressure, it makes your kidneys to work faster decreasing the final intravascular volume helping blood pressure levels.
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Remember to include in your diet Avocado, Olive Oil, Macadamias (or Macadamia Oil), Cold water fish like Salmon or Trout (full of Omega 3.6.9) which will increase your HDL levels
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Eat as LOW in salt as you possibly can. This includes not only table salt additions, but keeping away from smoked products, salted peanuts or nuts, or animal dried meat.
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Include antioxidant and diuretic food like Green Tea (my all around favorite.), Ginger, or Pineapple. it will help with the intravascular water depletion
[U]
EXERCISE:[/U]
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Yoga should work fine for you since meditation and relaxation produce dilatation of blood vessels lowering blood pressure.
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In case you do none, try to add some other cardiovascular exercise to your routine at least for 35 minutes / 3 times a week. Exercise in the long term is the main way to lower your blood pressure due to a decrease in oxygen demand and uptake by muscle tissue leaving more oxygen in the form of nitrous oxide which is the main body’s vasodilatator…
Take care…
Greetings to all!
Recently I started taking medication to treat my ADHD. One of the negative side effects of that medication is increase in blood pressure. I’ve always been physically healthy, but as result of this medication my BP increased to “pre-hypertension” levels (119/89). In order to reverse this or at least prevent further deterioration I started searching for remedies. In addition to other lifestyle adjustments (diet, exercise) I thought I’d look into yoga. In my 20s and 30s I dabbled a bit in yoga and I remember liking inverted asanas, and shirshasana in particular. (I remember reading some where that if you could do only one asana, and one asana only -shirshasana would be best choice).
In my search for asanas suitable for people with high BP I came across this thread. General consensus here seems that inverted asanas should be approached cautiously (at the very least) if one has high BP. While reading an article on another yoga website I came across following statement:
[I][B]
“The inverted poses in yoga are designed to lower blood pressure.”[/B][/I]
I found that statement on a New Zeland based yoga web site. As I am a new poster, forum software does not allow me to post links to other sites, but if you paste above statement into Google, the first result will be the site and article I got that statement from.
Can any one explain/comment on this dichotomy?
One additional question: The “Yoga Mimasa” graphs presented by Willem previously in this thread clearly demonstrate that BP increases while in shirshasana. But could it be that even though BP temporarily (?) increases while performing the actual asana, the long term effect of this practice is decreased BP?
Thanks in advance for any replies.
As an MD with a PhD in a field of neuroscience, I’m going to put my two cents in here.
Xamilo and Willem make a lot of sense, thanks guys for such great input.
1.) The concern with inverted postures for those with high blood pressure is NOT that being inverted will raise their blood pressure over the short term - meaning while actually in the posture. As Willem’s Mimasa study points out, we ENCOURAGE patients with high blood pressure to get aerobic exercise, and aerobic exercise raises blood pressure in the short term.
2.) The concern is in people with high blood pressure that have continuously high readings over the long term - those high pressures have resulted in damage to the blood vessels within their brains. The damaged vessels are more likely to rupture when there is increased pressure inside the head = a stroke. Standing on your head pools the blood inside a fixed cavity that cannot expand (the skull) and that increased blood inside the head increases the blood pressure within the arteries of the brain. Increased pressure inside a damaged blood vessel can make it blow.
3[B].) People that have a history of high blood pressure that is adequately controlled (less than 140/90 on most days and at most times of the day) may safely assume inverted postures.[/B]
4.) Lots of theory here - and some common sense. There are no medical studies of which I am aware that have actually DOCUMENTED stroke in a person with out of control blood pressure performing sirsasana or sarvangasana. In the absence of evidence one way or the other, it is prudent to be safe. IF your blood pressure is [I]uncontrolled[/I], hold off on sirsasana until your medical condition is better managed.
Having a blood pressure cuff at the Yoga studio is a GREAT idea. High blood pressure is the silent killer. Bringing awareness to blood pressure control and helping students to monitor theirs is a wonderful way to promote holistic health and to care for each other within the Yoga community.
This is pretty interesting thread. I do Sirsasana and Sarvangasana for 15 minutes. I do not know if I have BP or not, but I have family history of hypertension 
Sahasrara,
Please find a blood pressure cuff somewhere and have a look. Preventative medicine guidelines recommend screening for [B]all adults over 18 years[/B] of age at least biannually. Picking it up early can make a big difference in life. Two of the leading causes of death are heart attacks and strokes, both directly related to years of blood vessel damage from too high of a pressure coursing through them. Usually there are no symptoms, so without a blood pressure check, you won’t know.
All the best, Kathleen
[QUOTE=theYogadr.;57217]Sahasrara,
Please find a blood pressure cuff somewhere and have a look. Preventative medicine guidelines recommend screening for [B]all adults over 18 years[/B] of age at least biannually. Picking it up early can make a big difference in life. Two of the leading causes of death are heart attacks and strokes, both directly related to years of blood vessel damage from too high of a pressure coursing through them. Usually there are no symptoms, so without a blood pressure check, you won’t know.
All the best, Kathleen[/QUOTE]
Thank you doctor. I will. However, I do lot of Yoga, about three times a week for an hour, suryanamaskar about 24 at a stretch for three times a week and almost five days a week about four miles a day I jog/run. I am afraid that If I check, the psychological fear might haunt me